Artemis / Andy Weir

Title / Artemis

Author / Andy Weir

Publication Date / 2017

Page no. / 384

Series or standalone / Standalone

Overall Star Rating / ★★★★

 

Goodreads synopsis: Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of Jazz’s problems, as she learns that she’s stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself – and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even more unlikely than the first.

 

When I heard that Andy Weir was coming out with a new book, I was immediately interested. I thought this one was better than his previous book. First off, I thought Jazz was a great protagonist. She kind of sways between being likeable and unlikeable at times, but you become invested in her character anyway. I will say that I thought that her thinking seemed quite juvenile and immature alot of the time, even though she’s supposed to be 26 years old. I found this quite frustrating at times. Most of the characters had moments like this which detracted a little from the characters. For the most part though I did enjoy the characters and thought their progression through the book was good. It’s just that perhaps they could have had a little more depth and not been so immature. I will say that there are probably quite a few similarities between Jazz and Mark, in terms of their personalities and how they’ve been written. As with The Martian the writing is good and easy to get into. I will say that a lot of the scientific stuff kind of goes over my head, but it didn’t detract too much from my overall enjoyment. It does drag a little at times though, due to the scientific explanations. I have to admit skim reading some of those sections because I don’t really understand any of it. Despite this I still found this to be a compelling book. Once I started I just wanted to continue reading to find out what was going to happen next. Another strength of this book was definitely the world. I think Weir did a fantastic job of presenting us this world on the moon. It was easy to become immersed in the world while reading this book and I just thought that it was a very interesting one. I would love to see more of this moon city. This book is definitely not perfect but I still found it to be a fun, action packed and enjoyable read with a great world.

 

Overall I thought this was a very enjoyable read, although Jazz’s immaturity is a little frustrating at times.  Despite the flaws, I still thought it was great and I would definitely recommend checking it out. After some thought it’s probably more of a 3.5 star rating. If you enjoyed The Martian than I would say that there’s a good chance that you’ll enjoy this too.  Have you guys read it? I hope you are all having a wonderful day and I will see you next time.

 

Pippa