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syllareads 's review for:
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book was entertaining! And yet I can't give it more than 2.5 stars (1 star belongs to Rocky. IYKYK)
Project Hail Mary is a Scifi novel by Andy Weir, and this is actually his second novel I've read! No I didn't read the Martian; it was Artemis. Yes, it was bad. So at least PHM is better than that! Yay!
This book is mainly about our main character who, stranded in space and with no memory of how he actually got there, is supposed to be doing something (he sadly also forgot initially due to his selective amnesia) and will do his damnest to remember it - right after he's done gosh-darning us to death. i couldn't entirely take Ryland Grace seriously most of the time tbh but then again, I'm not sure if I was supposed to. Rocky definitely stole the show, is all I'm saying.
Apparently, Weir shines when he does what he does best - writing one human character in isolation from anyone else. There are flashbacks throughout the novel (The only times Grace gets to be seen with other people) and the stereotypes, particularly the racial ones, are....painful, honestly. Russians, but instead of making them dour sacks of shit we'll make them happy, "crazy" scientists who only drink Vodka? Great! A Black man who is so painfully "correct" that our main character can't help but comment on it basically every time he is on screen? This is not the subversion of racial tropes you think it is, sir! Overly correct and stoic Asian people? Indeed, we have those too! Every single character also had to speak with some sort of "accent", be it Chinese, German, or whatnot because surely, our main character can guess someone's nationality just by their accents. Because that's how it works. Right.
There are some smaller things that also didn't sit right with me throughout the book, so suffice it to say: Project Hail Mary is entertaining, but not what I wanted. It's better than Artemis, probably because the main character is thankfully someone Andy Weir can definitely relate to, but that's about all I'll give it.
Project Hail Mary is a Scifi novel by Andy Weir, and this is actually his second novel I've read! No I didn't read the Martian; it was Artemis. Yes, it was bad. So at least PHM is better than that! Yay!
This book is mainly about our main character who, stranded in space and with no memory of how he actually got there, is supposed to be doing something (he sadly also forgot initially due to his selective amnesia) and will do his damnest to remember it - right after he's done gosh-darning us to death. i couldn't entirely take Ryland Grace seriously most of the time tbh but then again, I'm not sure if I was supposed to. Rocky definitely stole the show, is all I'm saying.
Apparently, Weir shines when he does what he does best - writing one human character in isolation from anyone else. There are flashbacks throughout the novel (The only times Grace gets to be seen with other people) and the stereotypes, particularly the racial ones, are....painful, honestly. Russians, but instead of making them dour sacks of shit we'll make them happy, "crazy" scientists who only drink Vodka? Great! A Black man who is so painfully "correct" that our main character can't help but comment on it basically every time he is on screen? This is not the subversion of racial tropes you think it is, sir! Overly correct and stoic Asian people? Indeed, we have those too! Every single character also had to speak with some sort of "accent", be it Chinese, German, or whatnot because surely, our main character can guess someone's nationality just by their accents. Because that's how it works. Right.
There are some smaller things that also didn't sit right with me throughout the book, so suffice it to say: Project Hail Mary is entertaining, but not what I wanted. It's better than Artemis, probably because the main character is thankfully someone Andy Weir can definitely relate to, but that's about all I'll give it.