The more I heard about this book, the more excited I got. I kind of bought it on a whim and I'm really glad I did because it's phenomenal. The Martian is a survival story that's intense, hilarious, and smart. 
 Hands down, my favourite thing about this book is the protagonist, Mark Watney. Being stranded on Mars after an emergency mission abortion, where your crew thinks your dead, is not an ideal situation, like ever. Unfortunately, these are the circumstances in which Mark finds himself, whether he likes it or not. If this happened to me, it's guaranteed I'd be dead pretty much immediately. Luckily for him, Mark is not me, but instead a brilliant, sarcastic engineer and botanist. I loved seeing his thinking process as he pushed to survive until another space mission could possibly rescue him. My favourite characteristics about him were certainly his sarcasm and humour which actually had me laughing out loud several times. Although, in that sense it also made it slightly unbelievable at times just because I'm pretty sure being stranded on Mars would have a person more distraught and suffering. Then again, him communicating to us through logs probably cuts some of that out. 
 There's a pretty large cast of characters in this story but I loved all of them. I really did. Some of them have the same sarcasm as Mark which obviously I adore, and I found them all to have unique personalities from one another. I had actually looked up the movie cast on IMDB while I was reading and I'm really pleased with the actors they've picked. Everyone fits really well in my mind, so I can't wait til it's out in November! 
 Science is a huge part of the book and at first this worried me because science and math are not my forte AT ALL. Thankfully, Andy Weir makes it easier to understand for the most part by really breaking down concepts and using thorough explanations. I do admit to skimming some sections but those were due to some lengthy math problems and there was just no way I was getting myself involved in that. 
 The Martian is a fantastic book with a great cast of characters and a story that had me on the edge of my seat from page one. It also looks like it's going to have a great movie behind it and I can't wait til November. Check them both out!