It’s no secret that sci-fi is my favorite “step out of my comfort zone” genre. (Does that mean it’s now part of my reading comfort zone?) I got an early ARC of Project Hail Mary from NetGalley, but struggled to get into it (keep reading for why). However, it was a pleasant surprise of a book.

The Story

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

My Thoughts

I gave Project Hail Mary three stars for a variety of reasons. If you’re a big fan of science fiction, I think you would be a huge fan of the book. If not, I would definitely recommend moving past this one.

Now, why I abandoned it twice before finally powering through this time. The first chapter opens with Ryland Grace waking up from a coma. He has all sorts of tubes and things attached to all sorts of parts of his person (as you would think are needed both for a coma as well as a coma in space). It’s quite a jarring first chapter if you’re not expecting it.

First reason I dropped a star: This book is long. VERY long. Not Outlander long, but still super long. It is also inundated with a lot of technical speak. Lots of math formulas and calculations and chemistry and all sorts of nerdy things. It was kind of cool to read about, but it’s also something that you can skim (or skip entirely). I don’t love when books have all sorts of unnecessary things like that.

However, a big reason for all of the technical speak was that Project Hail Mary was written in a very stream-of-consciousness sort of way. It was probably my favorite thing about the book. Instead of it being written in a hoity-toity “I’m a genius. Read these formulas” kind of way, it was like reading the story of a real person. Ryland Grace is a schoolteacher, and it contributed to the overall narrative.

The other reason I dropped a star: The book felt overall anticlimactic. If you’ve seen Gravity, I think it’s a good comparison. You’re at a fairly high level of stress, and then it just ends. It’s not bad, but you just kind of feel empty and like you wasted a few days trying to “resolve” the book.

I read Artemis by Andy Weir and absolutely loved it. I think he does sci-fi really well. Will I go out and buy a physical copy of Project Hail Mary for my bookshelves because I loved it? Unlikely.

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