"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Review and quotes: PROJECT HAIL MARY


Title:
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Book Beginnings quote:


Friday56 quote from page 30, last page of preview:


Summary (Spoiler alert): Ryland Grace wakes from a coma. Slowly it dawns on him that he is on a spaceship and his other crew members are both dead. But why is he here? That comes to him slowly also. He is on a mission to Tau Ceti, a nearby solar system, to see if he can discover what is causing a drain of energy on our sun. At the rate that the sun is dimming the earth will be a freezer in a few decades. As his mission comes into focus, Grace discovers another spaceship nearby and learns that it too is on a similar mission to save its star and planet from extinction. "Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event" (Kirkus).


Review: 2021 has been an amazing reading year for me. First I found the near-perfect book for book club discussions in Molokai by Alan Brennert. Then all in one summer, I've listened to two near-perfect audiobooks with my husband during long car trips. The first was a series of essays by John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed. The second near-perfect-audiobook-for-a-car-trip from this summer is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The narrator, Ray Porter, who I think sounds like Tom Hanks, did a great job and so did the production company since they had to come up with a way to make sounds when the alien entered the scene and began talking. It was genius!

Secondly, Project Hail Mary is the first book I've talked to my brother about in about 50 years. You may not think it is weird to not talk to family members about books but it is for me. I talk to everyone about books and until now I never had a book in common with my brother, since 1001 Arabian Nights which we both loved when we were preteens. When I told my brother that we were listening to this Andy Weir book he said he'd read it a few months ago. He wanted to know where we were in the story and he laughed and chuckled as we talked about it. Then my nephew chimed in. He loved it, too. Another nephew perked up his ears and decided he'd better get a copy. We were having a family reunion and one of the big topics of conversation was this book. If you are female and you wish you could talk about books with your dad or brothers or other men in your life, I recommend you get them a copy of Project Hail Mary.

One more thing, obviously I love the book and I felt sure everyone else would agree with me. Out of over 18,000 ratings on Goodreads it has a 4.55 star average. Wow, that is very high. So call me surprised when I hopped over to read a few professional reviews and found that the reviewers for the NYT and for the Washington Post didn't particularly like the book. One said that it was clearly just written for Hollywood. And the other found fault in the fact that Weir, who clearly understands complicated science and physics facts, didn't have a checklist in the spaceship. Really people? The book is science fiction. We do not have the technology to fly to Tao Ceti or even Venus but Weir makes it seem possible and plausible yet you are quibbling about a detail missed in the story or worried that people will like a movie made from it?

The timeliness of this climate change parable couldn't be more perfect either with the UN Climate Report that came out yesterday with a headline of "Climate Change widespread, rapid, and intensifying." In Project Hail Mary all the nations and peoples of the world worked together to make the project possible. We, too, are all going to have to link arms and work together to solve our climate problems and pray it is not too late.

Honestly, I just want to gush about the book. Oh, I almost forgot to mention it. Project Hail Mary is funny. It is laugh out loud funny at points and very poignant at others. I even cried a few tears. Please, I can't say enough good things, just read it.



Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City ReaderShare the opening quote from current book.
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e Friday56 is hosted at Freda's VoiceFind a quote from page 56 to share. 

Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.   
    

Challenges:

  • 20-Book Summer Challenge: 16th book
  • Audiobook Challenge: 24/25
  • Big Book Summer Challenge, 496 pages long.

 

-Anne


22 comments:

  1. This sounds like a great read. I didn't like his second book and didn't finish it. Perhaps I would fare better with this one.

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    1. I read Artemis too and thought it was just okay. I like this one much, much more than it.

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  2. I loved this one too. Which is no surprise, since I loved The Martian. He makes his main characters so amusing! And, I hope the DO make it into a movie!

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  3. I really need to read this one. I loved The Martian, so.... You say this one is funny and I wanna read it even more now! Great review! Happy weekend! I'll add the link when the post is live tomorrow!

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  4. I’m so glad you loved this book!

    Will you be watching the film version when it comes out?

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    1. I watched the Martian and liked it so imagine I will like the movie made from this book, too.

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  5. I really loved this book, too. Rocky is the best! And how great that you and your brother could connect over it. That's one of the things I love most about books...finding that kind of connection with other people. :)

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    1. Yes. It was shocking but so enjoyable to find that we shared a book.

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  6. We are leaving to go on a trip later today. I wish I'd read this review earlier so that I could find the audio and listen to it.

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    1. Dang. Keep it in mind for another road trip so that you and your hubby can listen together.

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  7. I think 18,000 goodreads reviewers are better to listen to than 2 "professionals." :-) I haven't wanted to read this book, but you make it sound so good!

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    1. It is good. Very good. I hadn't really wanted to read it either but I am glad I did. Oh boy!

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  8. I still haven't read anything by Weir, even though both my dad and my sister are astrophysicists xD (Yes, they're the smart ones!) Maybe this will be the one I get into, and then I'll also have a book in common with them. Thanks for sharing and have a lovely weekend :)
    Juli @ A Universe in Words

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  9. The cover is interesting. Happy reading!!

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  10. I seed this book everywhere and people love it, I am just not sure I would get into a space story, i am not even a fan of movies like that

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  11. I have had my eye on this one. Thanks for sharing! Enjoy your weekend.

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  12. I'm intrigued by the excerpts and the description. It sounds excellent.

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  13. Sounds intense - the beginning is fantastic!

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  14. I loved this one too! Great review and thanks for sharing. :)

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  15. I loved this one too! So glad you enjoyed it and were able to share that with your brother. Hope you have a great weekend! :)

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  16. Great review! It's so nice that you could bond with your brother and nephew over it. I've been seeing Project Hail Mary everywhere recently so I might just have to add it to the TBR.

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  17. Congrats on another Big Book, Anne!!

    Thrilled to hear you gush about this one because my whole family so loved The Martian (I gave it to my husband, my dad, and my step-father!), and my husband just read this one for Big Book Summer and also loved it ... so I am next up!

    And I totally get about talking to your brother about it. One of the things I miss most about my dad is talking books with him, and it was always so much fun when we'd read the same book (like The Martian!). And, yes, Weir has a great sense of humor! He also wrote another novel in between called Artemis.

    Glad you enjoyed it so much - sounds great on audio!

    Sue

    2021 Big Book Summer Challenge

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