Project Hail Mary Book Review

I don't do "book reviews"; yes, this is not a normal occurrence. But since the film just released and I am going to see it tomorrow, I thought it might be a good idea to cover what I've thought of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary novel so far. (I only read the first 100 pages, but I have enough to say to make a full review on it; don't worry 🙃)

As a fairly strong reader, I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I really only read graphic novels in my free time. So, why would I read such a challenging novel as this one? Well, it's a long story. The shortened version: at first it was a school assignment, but after a few days, my teacher said I could change my book so I didn't have to annotate this one since I just wanted to enjoy it and not treat it like an assignment because I really enjoyed the first 20 or so pages I read from an Amazon sample. Dang that was too many words for the "shortened" version ngl. 🤣

So I got a new novel for school... and I just was left with Hail Mary.

I seriously did enjoy the first 20 pages of the book, so I continued reading and eventually I made it all the way to page one-hundo. Hey, it's better than nothing.

In today's blog, I will be reviewing the first 100 pages of Project Hail Mary before I go see the movie tomorrow. So... welcome. To the Project Hail Mary book review. Hi.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION | NOTES | CONCLUSION | CREDITS

• So, you're probably wondering why I only read 100 pages if I really liked it and my #1 reason is so I can avoid spoilers for the film... cuz let's all keep in mind I am quite literally going to see this movie in just over 24 hours... and the other reason is because I don't think I want to/could physically read 400 or so pages in just over 24 hours 💩
• One thing I have really enjoyed about reading this book is how well I can picture what's going on because I've seen footage from the movie; what I mean by this is I can picture all the characters, the different scenes from the trailer onto the pages, stuff like that; the #1 thing I HATE when reading a book is not being able to picture what's going on; if I can't picture it, what's the point? You literally have no clue how mad I get when I can't picture in my tiny little brain every little thing that's going on (Except maybe the description of tubes in Ryland's crotch at the very beginning; NO ONE wants to picture that; that description was literally the most disturbing thing I have ever read ever I can't even think about it 🙏 Why am I still thinking about it 😭🤣)
• You could for sure argue with me and that's completely fine, but I feel like in my opinion, it's SO crazy how surprisingly little Andy Weir has accomplished in 100 pages; it all feels necessary, but everything is really dragged out... REEEEAAAALLLLLYYYYY dragged out... so, yes, this book is in fact too long; I changed my mind a couple days ago trying to get through the ENTIRE book before Tuesday... and I'm so glad I did; not just to avoid spoilers, but because... it takes me a while to read this thing tbh; anyways, as I was saying, this book is pretty slow-paced and if you really think about it, so far, the entire book has just been a guy regaining his memories and exploring a spaceship he's on; meanwhile, if you look at the movie, everything in the book so far has kind of been summed up in the dang trailer... except for Rocky... which I'm still kind of surprised they spoiled in the trailer... but... yeah, I would never have expected an alien to show up here if they hadn't said it in the trailers; I didn't think this book had that kind of vibe after reading thousands and thousands of scientific terms I know nothing about and reading hours of scientific descriptions... I also know nothing about; (Except mitosis; I know mitosis; phew!) but as I was saying, an alien just doesn't seem right for the mood the author has been trying to build the entire beginning of the novel 💩
• As I was sort of talked about in 8px font just now... all the scientific terms in this book are PAST "over the top"; you need to be actively studying the highest level of science or be a completely professional highest-level-of-science teacher to 100% understand this book; I'm so surprised I don't see this complaint more often; I really don't know why the author (Who FOR SURE knows what he's talking about btw throwing around all these terms bro literally look up a picture of him 🙏😅) did this because in my experience, it's just frustrating; there were probably like 2 or 3 times throughout just these first 100 pages that I wanted to stop reading because it was getting so out of hand; the only person in my life that I know has read some of the book said she hated it because it was "like reading a Biology textbook" which is completely reasonable; but then on the other side you got everyone else saying that this book changed their life and stuf; (Which kinda makes no sense based on the actual storyline, but whatever) anyways, when I was researching the age range for this story, it was pretty hard cuz obviously it's like a Biology textbook, as I just stated, but at the same time there is a Stitch-like alien in it and also some really funny, kind of childish jokes at times; I'm going a bit off track here so hopefully you know what I mean cuz... none of this makes sense to me; COMMENT BELOW WHAT YOU THINK! (ig some of the confusing science stuff cleared up by the end of my 100 pages like, for example, I didn't understand NOTHING about the Petrova Line or any of that crud but then, I suppose as time went on, it became a bit more clear with the Astrophage going from Venus to the sun and whatnot... although that's just one example... it's all still pretty fuzzy at times ngl) last thing for this point: I'm really curious to know how the movie is going to handle the science here; if they don't trim some of it down, I might puke
• I don't understand the language in this book; the one f-bomb that we got so far was COMPLETELY unnecessary, but at the same time, the language is FOR SURE not as bad as Common Sense Media and all that other stuf was making it out to be... so far... but anyways... (Glad to hear that the movie has seriously like 0 language; that was a HUGE pleasant surprise to me; #1, because the book, yes, has some language, and #2, it seems that every movie nowadays has to include bad language of some sort so it's REALLY nice to hear that that might not be the case this time)
• The suspense in this story is great; I especially loved the part when he leaves his classroom and dedicates his mission to his students; that was pretty 🔥 fr (But also, the way the author tries to make it super suspenseful and dramatic at the end of each chapter with the cliffhangers feels really forced sometimes; but I appreciate the effort to end it on that kind of note I suppose lol 🙃)

I might read a few more pages before tomorrow because I'm honestly shocked by how much I'm enjoying this book right now, but... yeah, in just over 24 hours I'm gonna know literally everything about the ending without even having to read the last 400 or so pages. 💩🤣

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

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