I got so much respect for Mark Watney, oh my god. This is the story of someone who really isn't ready to give up, ever. As someone who is quite good at not believing in their own abilities, this book has given me something. It's full of constant problem solving, nothing ever just goes as planned and still, Mark Watney endures and drops funny comments on the way. If there is a resilient person, it is him. I also liked how we got to see a little of the world's reaction to what is happening. The press and politicians getting involved for example, and how there might be solutions that would require cooperating with people you normally don't coperate with. As said: Constant problem solving, on every end.
That being said, I listened to the audio book in german and I thought the narrator was okay, but could've been better. The tension got through to me, but I wonder if I this book would've hooked me more when physically reading it. But maybe it wouldn't have, because while I thought it was cool to read a sci-fi novel that actually put A LOT of work into the sci-aspect, I didn't understand what exactly was happening a lot of the time. I got the jist, but since I am bad at physics and chemistry, some parts just went over my head. So reading these parts might be a little annoying to me. I don't really know how to explain why this book didn't have me in a choke hold, especially because I love the movie a lot and after reading the book I feel like the adaptation is very well made. Somehow I just didn't click with it fully, but I'd still say it's a very cool book and know some people who would love it way more than I did.