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babewiththepower.bsky.social · @babewiththepower.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Artemis 6/10

When I read some reviews to this book before I started reading it, I thought it unfair that so many reviews kept comparing it to Weir's previous giant hit, "The Martian." Now that I've finally finished this book over a year after I first started it, I find myself in the same position. It's difficult to not compare the two. Both are about being in difficult situations where survival is a real concern and any little mistake can kill you. It took until just over halfway before I really felt the book take off. Before that it felt like just a lot of meandering with the main character, taking too long to establish the environment and the shadiness of the main character, but with a heart of gold. I found two main issues for me personally in really taking to the book. One of them was that a lot of it involved physics and chemistry. I have a science background, but neither of those were my forte nor something I really cared for ever. The other problem was something I fully realized once I read the notes/acknowledgements/thank yous from Weir at the very end. Kudos to him for thanking a group of women for helping him try to flesh out his character, but I think there was probably too much of a struggle for him to write as a young woman in first person. I'd mention also that she was a woman of color, but that didn't really factor in at all with her other than whenever it was brought up about where she'd be deported to from the Moon if she continued with her shenanigans. Near the end when things got dire, I just didn't feel it. I was flipping pages mainly to get to the end and not so much because I was invested in any of the characters. It's not a bad book, it's just not that great.

#book

Published 2026-08-18 17:59 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere