Artemis by Andy Weir (NetGalley Review)

Artemis by Andy Weir
Publisher: Crown (November 14, 2017)
Description from the publisher:

Jazz Bashara is a criminal.
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

Oh, how I wanted to love this book! One of the reasons that the majority of advance copies I request are from authors I've read and enjoyed is because I really hate giving a negative dedicated review. I absolutely devoured The Martian, and it was one of my favorite books of 2014. The idea of a female protagonist who was going to 'science the sh*t' out of things on the moon was also very appealing. Alas... 

Let me start with the good: Weir is SUPERB at world building. The city of Artemis is fully realized in my mind and full of fun and unique details about the way people live, eat and entertain themselves on the moon. Like many great sci-fi novels, I can ABSOLUTELY picture the inevitable movie version. And, like Mark Watney's character in The Martian, Jazz's ingenuity was compelling. However...

The main character has a similar irreverent shtick that worked in The Martian, but didn't work for me in this novel. The salty language was not used to any kind of great humor - I just felt as if Jazz somehow needed it to make her seem tough and have a chip on her shoulder. For the life of me, I never really figured out why she was so angry at the world or her dad. If I did, it might have gone a long way to make me want to pick up the book more often and care about her plight. The action was fun, but I didn't care how it would play out. It's one thing to think about being stranded on another planet, trying to get home to your family. That has drama and heart. An inexplicably angry woman trying to pull off an illegal heist? Not so much.

If interesting science (lots of stuff about heat, atmosphere, how things would work on the moon in zero gravity - like the way dust settles, which was really interesting!) or a cinematic heist sounds like fun fare, by all means, you should definitely read Artemis. These are things I nerd out on as well, but I just wanted a little more.

Many thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review!