Valentine's day book review: "The Martian"

For Valentine's day, Bobbi got me a copy of a book called "The Martian." She didn't buy it for me. She's way too clever for that. She took out of the library. That way I didn't have to figure out what book to throw out to make space for it if I liked it, and she didn't have to regret buying it if I didn't.

Win!

I finished it in one day. Could not get to sleep without reading it to the end.

The book had me at the first line. Here it is:

I'm pretty much fucked^*.

That may not be your idea of great literature, but if you put "Call me Ishmael," one of the official best opening lines of all time up against "I'm pretty much fucked," "I'm pretty much fucked" wins 99 times out of a hundred.

And the hundredth time is a tie.

How about  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." 

Nope. "I'm pretty much fucked" wins.

Those are the best opening lines from memory. But you know me (or maybe you don't). Research is my middle name.  I looked up "100 Best First Lines from Novels".

I'm not through the whole list, and I gotta say there are some contenders, but "I'm pretty much fucked." is still tops for me.

Some books start out great, and go down from there. And you'd think that with an opening like "I'm pretty much fucked," that you'd have no place to go but down. But no. The rest of the book does not disappoint.

You can get "The Martian" at Amazon. Or you can do what Bobbi did, and get it at the Blue Hill Public Library.

* Wikipedia has a page for fuck. Of course they would.