Artemis

Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved Weir's first book, the Martian, because it felt so true to life despite being set on Mars. His second book feels much more like fiction, and though it was entertaining, I had a harder time connecting with the characters and their life-and-death trials.

Jazz was a hard nut to crack - she's very emotionally guarded, for good reason we find out. I was rooting for her the whole time, and I loved her inventiveness and quick wits, but she kept making terrible decisions!

Jazz's relationship with Dale is really confusing - when we first meet him, he seems very antagonistic towards her, mocking her for not passing her EVA exam, but we're supposed to believe he's actually deeply apologetic for betraying her and trying to get back in her good graces? That feels false to me. He should have been more sympathetic to her in that first meeting, regardless of how she spoke to him. Also, I don't think Jazz owes him any forgiveness. Regardless of whether her boyfriend would have figured out he was gay (or bi) eventually and left her, the two closest people in her life lied to her and cheated on her with each other. Forgiveness for something as heinous as that needs to be earned. Maybe saving Jazz's life is a step in the right direction, but her reservations make sense to me.

Svoboda (which means freedom in russian, by the way) is an interesting character - we don't actually know much about him, other than he is super smart and awkward around women, which they take pains to point out all the time. I wish we could have gotten to know more about him and less about his reusable condom invention, which seemed to exist just so Jazz having sex could be brought into the conversation every chance they got.

Speaking of Jazz's sex life, with all the times she mentioned how hot Rudy was, I totally thought they were setting the two of them up to work together and start dating. Why else would his looks and body be the focus so many times? Alas, they are not meant to be.

The part I cried during was Jazz and her dad's conversation at the end when she's finally repaid him for all the damage she'd caused to him. He was deeply touched, despite his disapproval of the source of her income, and I loved that it gave him the opportunity to open up to her about his own childhood, and to tell her how proud he was of her. I wish we could have learned more about her mother other than "she left when I was a baby on earth," and I wonder what ramifications growing up without a mother had on Jazz.

All in all, this was an entertaining book, despite some problematic areas, and if there was to be a sequel, I would read it with pleasure.

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