I absolutely adored this book. I was hooked right from the beginning, and Wil Wheaton's brilliant performance on the audiobook made it all the more special. 

While I loved both the plot and the characters, it's the writing style that really drew me in. This is a very science heavy book, and if written differently could have been very heavy and hard to understand; alternatively, in different hands it could have been a standard space-set action adventure. The chatty first person format worked brilliantly to make the book entertaining even during long sections with little happening and only a single character by himself - if anything, the more dramatic scenes were actually less compelling. At times the book was also quite funny, though it isn't a comedy. 

The book isn't without flaws. There were a number of flashbacks that felt superfluous to me, and there were times where the humour felt uncomfortably sexist or otherwise in bad taste. 

Overall though I loved the book and highly recommend it.