The Martian by Andy Weir, an extremely powerful story of a young American, and in this case, Martian hero, and his journey through colonization, exploration, and catastrophe, instantly caught my attention.

Mark Watney, against all odds, is making it happen. He began his Martian training on Earth at the NASA flight center, where from there he met his six-person crew and developed a family-like bond. These astronauts would be together for close to a year — or so they thought. A brutal desert storm came shortly after the crew arrived, forcing everyone to evacuate. As the astronauts fled to their departure rocket, Mark Watney was struck by the antenna of one of the communications stations, puncturing his suit as well as himself, leaving him on Mars, alone.

Through the mixture of catastrophe and great success, Watney leads the readers through emotional highs and lows through his log book. Weir did a great job by taking a foreign environment and putting a character that is relatable in it to help the reader grasp the idea of space travel. Mark Watney is talking to the reader through a Martian Log Book; however, he writes with obscene language and friendly verbiage. Watney’s communication with the reader made us sympathize with him when things went wrong and elated when he worked a major problem out. You, as a reader, learn and grow through the book alongside Mark, and quickly become a cheerleader for the colonizer.

Weir made this book easy to comprehend, and even easier to read and enjoy. The language and dialogue used helps the reader, who likely has no intelligence in space travel, understand what it may be like or feel as if you were truly there. Through his log books, Watney lays out the basics of how Mars works and the special machines that he has to use to survive, which no reader would have been expected to know. By supplying easy-to-understand knowledge for the reader, it gets the reader’s own head thinking about ways to solve the problems our main character is facing, ultimately hooking us even deeper into the book.

All in all, I do recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun, easy read that involves space travel and engineering, as it was very difficult to set this book down until I finished it.