thriller | macarons & paperbacks

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.

Artemis by Andy Weir
Published November 14, 2017 by Crown Publishing Group
Format: Netgalley e-book; 384 pages
Science Fiction/Mystery
Also By This Author: The Martian
Goodreads | Amazon | Author’s Website
My Rating: ♥♥♥♥

Thoughts:

Very rarely do I get excited about new release books. Normally I wait at least a year to see if the book can live up to its hype, but there are a few authors I make an exception for. Andy Weir is one of them. I read The Martian in 2015 after the movie was already in production, because I had heard so many good things about it and it sounded like the type of book both my husband and I would love. It ended up being my favorite book of the year.

So when I found out Andy Weir was publishing a new book this year about a female smuggler on the moon, I was stoked! For the moment I only have an e-book copy courtesy of Netgalley, but you can bet I’m going to get a hardcover copy because the cover is gorgeous, and it will sit nicely next to my lovingly worn paperback copy of The Martian.

About Artemis! The first half of this novel felt different from The Martian. Our main character and narrator, Jazz, is a 26-year old citizen of Artemis, the only city on the moon. She is also a genius, but she chooses to live the life of a smuggler, despite everyone else’s opinion that she could be doing something extraordinary with her talents. Andy Weir takes a while to describe the city of Artemis, the way it works (it’s run more like a corporation than a government), and the people in it, and it’s easy to get used to Jazz’s smart-alec personality.

The second half of the novel brought me back to the summer I read The Martian, when every chapter it felt like my own life was hanging in the balance. Jazz is a master problem solver, and sometimes she’s a trial and error learner, which creates a lot of anxiety for the reader! Toward the end of the novel, every chapter had at least one everything is screwed and everyone is gonna die moment, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Artemis was both a technical science fiction novel and a murder mystery story. The characters Andy Weir created were amazing and very realistic. Jazz has some great friends; my only qualm was that I wish we got to actually meet Kelvin.

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The Martian by Andy Weir

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Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Published January 1, 1990 by Ballantine Books
Science Fiction/Thriller
Format: paperback; 399 pages
Also From This Author: The Lost World, Timeline, Prey
Goodreads | Amazon
My Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Synopsis:

A billionaire has created a technique to clone dinosaurs. From the DNA that his crack team of scientists extract, he is able to grow the dinosaurs in his laboratories and lock them away on an island behind electric fences, creating a sort of theme park. He asks a group of scientists from several different fields to come and view the park, but something goes terribly wrong when a worker on the island turns traitor and shuts down the power.

Thoughts:

As a dino-nerd who has been both terrified and enthralled by “terrible lizards” for most of her life, it still shocks me that I waited this long to read Michael Crichton’s thrilling classic Jurassic Park. I’ve even had a gently used paperback copy on my bookshelf for several years now, but it wasn’t until I saw Jurassic World recently that I finally desired to dive into the book that started it all. And dive I did, for I could not put it down once I got past the few introductory chapters. This book kept me riveted until the very last page (literally) and all the things I love about Jurassic Park the film were only multiplied by the novel.

The voices of the characters are so clear that it was effortless to hear them debating back and forth across the page. Ian Malcolm’s philosophical rants are twice as long yet much deeper than they are in the film, and John Hammond, while stubborn and slow to see the true failure of his endeavors on screen, is impossibly hard-headed (and might I add hard-hearted) in the novel. And Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are still my heroes :)

I loved the clear black and white themes running through Crichton’s book as well. They give you so much to think about that my mind was still pondering over everything days after I finished the book. I even went and bought the sequel the next day! Although, I’m saving it for my vacation next week ;)

Read This Book If:

…you love dinosaurs! (or are terrified by them)
…you are looking for a book to keep you on the edge of your seat up until the very last page.
…you enjoy light science fiction and thrillers.
…you’re longing for a book that makes you think and feel.

Final Musings:

I use this phrase very rarely, but Jurassic Park is a must-read for anyone who has watched the movie(s) and longed for more. The film has of course strayed from the novel in some ways, but the general themes and diatribes remain genuine. You will not be disappointed by Michael Crichton’s most famous thriller!