It was great. Really captivating. It had heart, and I could not help but root for Watney. He was a great character, and with a different personality it would have been super depressing. Instead, I was rooting along with the rest of the fictional world. The side characters were also pretty great, and we saw more of them than I would have thought. Great story.

Just finished this gloriously funny, exceptionally interesting sciencey romp. I loved every last iota of it. But I'm docking the book a star because the main character is just too perfect. The author couldn't just make him a botanist and the best square foot gardener on the planet, he also had to be a can-fix-everything engineer, and the kind of person who just happens to know things like the average weight of a half-square-meter of basalt. It's too much.