I was given Artemis by Andy Weir as a present over the holidays this past year.  I was excited to receive it because I’d read his short story The Egg and his book The Martian (also a gift), both of which I really liked it.  Those genre of books are ones that after I read the summaries for I’m like “yes I’m into this” and add to my to-read list but they always get pushed behind all the copious amounts of paranormal romance I read haha.  But when I get books as gifts I make an effort to read them as close to when I received them as possible (exception being the Game of Thrones series because omg those were toughhh for me to binge read, I love them, but man I always feel like I need a break after every chapter!) so gifted books help me get out of my book reading rut and diversify.

Anyways, Artemis was a fun read, but didn’t knock my socks off or anything. It was a slow start for me where I felt like the book was focused on describing the map of the city instead of getting me attached to the main character.

I skimmed a bit when I was tired of the technical talk but it really wasn’t too overwhelming or difficult to understand.  Weir is a smart guy who does his research on how to make the elements in his book actually work and have real scientific backing, but for a girl who reads about sexy glowing space aliens, wizards, and vampires, I don’t always need much in the way of the detailed hows.

The characters were interesting but I would have liked them to be better developed, I felt like there was a subtle romance happening between characters that (romance bias!) I would have liked to see more of or at least let me get to know the characters better.  I mean its definitely saying something that the author left me wanting more but there is a difference between the “omg soo good I wanna be there more hanging with these characters” and “hey.. I feel like I just met them, thought they might be cool enough to get to know and now they’re gone.”

There were some twists and the thriller elements were fun and kept the pace going along nicely after the beginning descriptions of how the city is set up. The main character didn’t have much growth over the course of the novel so it read more like “hey here’s this thing that happened, bye”, she’s was mostly in the same place at the end as she was at the beginning. But I’m pro strong female lead and I love me some space setting so overall it was entertaining and I’m not disappointed that I read it.

Recommended for fans of The Martian and sci-fi thrillers with female leads.

3 stars!