While I went into the book thinking that it would be similar to The Martian and debating if it was worth it to read. Once my mother and friends finally convinced me to read it, I finished the novel glad I chose to go on the adventure out in space with Ryland Grace. 

“We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets.” 

Premise of the book:

Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who used to be a molecular biologist, wakes up alone in the middle of space with amnesia. His mission? Saving the Earth from a microscopic organism, known as Astrophages, that are feeding on the sun’s energy by finding a predator to eat them. Grace is the last hope Earth has, but he has no clue as to how he ended up in that role. 

“Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.” 

Pros/positives:

*Characters*

Both the main and side characters are so well written and fun. I enjoyed Grace’s personality and mindset. The author made Grace someone you wanted to root for. I appreciated his comedy. I knew this man was going to be a joy when he was trying to remember who he was. All he had in his memory was that he is in his 30s, lives in a small apartment, and he doesn’t have any children, but he “like[s] kids a lot”. His next thought was “I don’t like where this is going…”, followed by the realization “I’m a school teacher…Oh, thank God!” (33). On top of his humor, he was a quick thinker, easily doing math that I wouldn’t have ever been able to figure out. 

The side characters were also interesting. I loved how we learned more about Grace’s life and the people he knew on Earth as the book goes on. Most of the side characters didn’t get a lot of time with the reader, aside from Eva Stratt, yet I found myself caring for them anyway. The author managed to make the reader care for each character by giving them heartfelt scenes with Grace. One of my favorite minor side characters was Ilyukhina, one of the astronauts. Grace didn’t have a lot of scenes with her, but he did keep having memories pop up. In one of Grace’s flashbacks, he remembers the time when he was celebrating with all of the astronaut crews. Ilyukhina’s extroverted personality rubbed off on me. She liked joking around, even kidding about how Stratt, their boss, “could use [a] good roll in [the] hay” (294).

Obviously, Rocky was my favorite. He added so much humor and spark to an already solid book. The friendship between Rocky and Grace was a huge factor in why I rated this book so high. They worked so well together and taught each other so many different topics. I appreciated how Rocky had skills in some different science fields than Grace did; it allowed for both of them to teach each other more. You could see how much they cared for one another. 

*Plot*

The plot was so addictive to me. I can’t think of a single time I was bored while reading this novel. I actually read this book in two days because I couldn’t put it down. The plot twists were interesting, as I found that I couldn’t foresee most of them.

Not only was the pacing and length of the chapters perfect for me, but I was obsessed with the way that Grace’s memories slowly came back to him, leaving the reader continuously wondering how Grace ended up on this ship.

While I could vaguely guess the ending, I still found it to be adorable and so heartwarming. It satisfied me so much more than I expected it to, but the author did it in a way that kept the reader guessing on what would happen next until the very end.

The plot idea itself is also just captivating. The author did a great job of slowly revealing more about the Astrophages and their life cycle. Andy Weir did an amazing job building up a fake species! He came up with their food source, mating process, desired climate, etc. It made it so much easier to submerge myself into the novel.

*Writing style*

I appreciated the author’s writing style as well, as I thought that it had a strong voice and gave Grace so much more character. I could feel the nerdy side of Weir come out whenever a new science topic was brought up. If you flip through the pages of Project Hail Mary, you’d find that some of them are filled to the brim with many numbers, all describing different science observations made by Grace. These pages are where you can see the author geek out over the science concepts that this book covers. The writing style itself was so distinctive. I found it to be similar, at least science-wise, to The Martian, but the author keeps a unique voice for Grace.

“When stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas.” 

In between/neutral:

*Science aspects*

There was an almost overwhelming amount of science in this book, in the best way possible. While it made me both more engaged with the book, I also found myself struggling to visualize some of the scenes that were science-heavy.

“Intelligence evolves to gives us an advantage over the other animals on our planet. But evolution is lazy. Once a problem is solved, the trait stops evolving.” 

Cons/negatives: 

*Needs high concentration*

When I started reading the novel, I needed total concentration due to the amount of science that the book contains. This made it so that I would sometimes be distracted by background noises. I did find, though, that this problem tampered out the more I read because the book was so intriguing to me.

“But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.” 

Conclusion: 

Pros – Characters, plot, writing style, 

In between – Science aspects

Cons – Needs high concentration

Overall – 4.75 out of 5

“Besides, if I had a nickel for every time I wanted to smack a kid’s parents for not teaching them even the most basic things…well…I’d have enough nickels to put in a sock and smack those parents with it.”