Skip to main content

Andy Weir: Artemis

 This is my second time through Artemis. I read it before resurrecting this blog, so here I am, reading it again to review it.

Artemis by Andy Weir imagines a society on the moon. Jazz Bashara has lived in Artemis since she was six. She has a successful smuggling side hustle alongside a legitimate porter job. Artemis is full of all kinds of people, from the very wealthy to the very poor. As Jazz says, "I'm one of the little guys." That's all about to change when Trond Landvik, one of the very wealthy, offers her a million slugs to pull a job. All she has to do is sabotage the mining operations of the city's oxygen supplier, Sanchez Aluminum. After a botched job, and a double murder, Jazz finds herself far over her head and the next target of a powerful crime syndicate. Can Jazz outwit O Palacio and mend broken relationships to save Artemis?

This is a fun story. Jazz's narrative voice is hilarious. I love her personality and her depth. I love the amount of science and research that Andy Weir puts into his novels. This one feels as realistic as The Martian (coming up on my TBR list). The writing and pacing are engaging, and I love the depth of the characters.

One thing that really bugs me about this novel is that everyone makes Jazz out to be this player who sleeps around. It's fairly obvious as you get further into the novel that she hasn't done that in a long time. It bugs me that everyone makes such a big deal about it when it's not that important to the book. It felt like an unnecessary attempt to add depth the Jazz's character, which was achieved through other plot points.

I also felt that she got out of trouble at the very end far too easily. After she nearly killed everyone in Artemis, she gets off with a hefty fine and that's it. It bothered me the way she manipulated herself out of trouble, and that it seemed to happen so perfectly.

In all, I did enjoy this book. I rated it ⭐⭐⭐⭐



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dashka Slater: The 57 Bus

 I picked this one up to possibly use in my AP class. It had been recommended to me by one of my coworkers and I was trying to decide if it was worth using in AP. The 57 Bus  recounts the true story of two teens whose happenstance meeting on a public bus in Oakland, California. Sasha identified as nonbinary, liked to wear skirts, and went to a private school in Oakland. Richard was a black student, a good kid, but also tended to get mixed up in trouble. He went to a public school in Oakland's poorer side of town. One day, Sasha was riding the bus as they always did back to their house from school. This time though, Sasha fell asleep on the long ride. Richard and his friends boarded the bus as well, and seeing the skirt hanging off the edge of the seat, decided to see what would happen with a lighter. The material of the skirt burst into flames, and suddenly Sasha was burning. This story is unbelievably sad for both teenagers involved. In working with teenagers, one thing is tr...

Tricia Levenseller: The Shadows Between Us

 This was another book we read for our book club. The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller follows the independent and murderess Alessandra. Alessandra has been overlooked her entire life, including by her first love, Hector. But, Alessandra has a plan to change everything: convince the Shadow King to fall in love with her, then kill him and take his throne. As she moves to the palace and gets knee-deep in the intrigue, things change. Will Alessandra go through with her cunning plan, or will she give in to her heart and marry the most powerful man in the world? Truthfully, I desperately wanted to like this book, but I just... didn't. It was shockingly sappy and incredibly predictable. I had Alessandra pegged from the very start. She wasn't going to kill the Shadow King, and she was certainly going to fall in love with him. While the journey to get there wasn't as obvious, I knew the outcome from the very start. Murdering Hector and the subsequent discovery of his body c...

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

 This is another book I plan on using next year in AP language. In Cold Blood  by Truman Capote is the story of the Clutter murders in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. Perpetrated by two men who had never met the family, Capote tracks them in the days that lead up to the murders and the months that follow. He follows investigators, family members, and many connected with the case to its ultimate end - the hanging of the two murderers. I loved this book. While this book is completely true, it reads like a mystery novel. Capote masterfully unravels the mystery and carefully reveals the secrets of the case. It was fascinating to read and is amazingly well-written. I feel like my only criticism is that it was a little unclear at first that it was non-fiction. I would have loved something at the end that described how Capote got the information he got. Did he follow the case from the start, or did he do his extensive research afterwards? Regardless, this is a beautifully written book and i...