Project Hail Mary – by Andy Weir

This is the most recent book that I have finished reading. I watched the Hail Mary in theaters. I loved the movie so, I decided to read the book version too.

Project Hail Mary is a science fiction book about a middle-school science teacher named Ryland Grace who wakes up alone in a spaceship. A spaceship that was millions of miles away from Earth. But, the twist is that he has no memory of who he is and why he is in a spaceship million of miles away from Earth. As he spends time trying to figure out why he is here, on the spaceship, his memories start returning slowly. He discovers that he has been sent on an extremely important mission about to save the Earth. Earth is losing energy, so if he fails, humans might go extinct. As he tries to solve the problem of Earth losing its energy, he meets unexpected challenges and aliens. Rocky, who is an alien also faces the problem of his planet losing energy. Rocky and Ryland Grace work together to solve the problem of their planets losing energy.

The top five main characters in this book are Ryland Grace, Rocky, Eva Stratt, Yáo, and Olesya Ilyukhina. First, Ryland Grace is the middle-school science teacher and the main character who goes on the mission. Second, Rocky is the alien that Ryland Grace meets in outer space to solve the problem together. Third, Eva Stratt is the leader who organized the whole mission to save Earth. Fourth, Yáo is a Chinese astronaut who was also chosen for the mission but something unfortunate happens to both him and Olesya Ilyukhina. Fifth, Olesya Ilyukhina is another astronaut who was selected. She is a Russian astronaut.

There are some differences between in the book and movie. The first difference is Eva Stratt, in the book she is strict and serious. Mostly focused on the Hail Mary project, but in the movie she has a karaoke scene. That shows a more personal side of her. The second difference is the character Rocky. In the book, it is described that eating is not really something to do it in front of other aliens. In the movie Rocky said, “Grace look dis-guust, when eat.” When Grace asks “how do you look when you eat?” Rocky replies “It looks beautiful, show me” The third difference is a general one. There are way more problems in the book than in the movie. The movie is actually very short compared to the book.

One of the main themes that are shown is book is Survival vs. Friendship. Here are some parts that represent the main themes of Survival vs. Friendship. Ryland Grace starts of his journey, and at that time, his main goal was to help humanity survive. He was also trying to save himself. When he met Rocky, he realized that Rocky was also there for the same reason. Because of that, they developed a strong friendship. The best part of the story that shows this theme is when Ryland Grace chooses to save Rocky instead of going back to Earth. He survives in the end. A lesson I learned from this theme is that you should learn to take sacrifices for people you care about the most.

For some basic information about the book before you read it, there are 30 chapters. There are 476 pages in this book. In my experience reading this book, it way longer than the movie I watched. Even though the main plots are the same, while I was reading it, I thought I was almost the end and the story kept on going on and on and on. There are no pictures and the text is small with a lot of scientific words. There is no currently available Lexile score for Hail Mary, but it says the book targeted for grades 9-12, which means it is recommended for readers aged 14 and up.