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The Martian is a runaway bestseller about a guy stuck on Mars who spends his time being a smartass and trying to get back to earth by “sciencing the shit” out of the problem. Using a lot of tape. And radioactivity. And potatoes. This book is from a debut novelist who really knows his shit: both the chemical jury rig for creating water out of jet fuel, and the way to make you turn pages so fast they rip a little, the paper spotted with blood from your overly-gnawed fingernails. I discovered the novel during my spring field season as a wildlife biologist, reading by headlamp in the camper shell of my truck. I sacrificed way too many precious hours of sleep to finding out OH, GOD, WHAT WILL HAPPEN to Mark Watney, the disco-hating astronaut whose favorite pastime is... Read More

If I Stay by Gayle Forman, is a teen cello-addict whose whole family gets wiped out by a car crash in the first scene. *All readers click the X button on this blog * To be fair, that was my first response too. Despite many people recommending this one to me, I don’t like sad books. Therefore, it took me a while to give this one a chance, especially since it is written from the POV of a girl in a coma (wow, game for a challenge much, Gayle? That’s hardcore). The book is really about the girl (Mia) deciding if she wants to live. I was pumping the pom poms from the start, because she has a super hot boyfriend (Adam, oh Adam…) who sings in a rock band, plays the guitar like a true panty-dropper, and is sweet... Read More