Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
I first picked up this book not expecting much, but after reading through the first handful of chapters, the scale of this story set into place. Much of this story takes place in space, where our protagonist Ryland Grace (Scientist) is introduced with amnesia and his dead crewmates Yao (commander) and Ilyukhina (flight specialist) who both died on a multiple year long one way journey to the star system called Tau Ceti aboard the spaceship named the Hail Mary.
Now why did three humans get sent on a suicide mission? Well the book answers this question with a series of flashbacks from Ryland Grace about his time on earth. The gist of the problem is Astrophage, an alien organism described as space algae is feeding off the sun’s light out in space and is causing less light to hit earth which causes global cooling predicted to make humanity extinct within a handful of decades.
With the impending doom of humanity, the world’s nations band together under the leadership of Eva Stratt who is dedicated to launching the Hail Mary to the one star unaffected by Astrophage, Tau Ceti. Sadly this isn’t a far flung future with warp drives and cryogenic stasis, their only hope of making the 12 light year journey is to use the Astrophage as propulsion and energy storage with the best, most reliable technology humanity could muster. As the journey was predicted to take 13 years, humanity had to scramble to make the Hail Mary to not freeze before a possible solution came. Twelve light years itself was a stretch, there was no possibility to send the astronauts back.
Here we get into spoilers, fair warning if you want to read this amazing book. Ryland Grace is a leading expert in Astrophage research and conveniently has a so-called coma resistance gene which is found in one human in every 7000 humans needed to go on the Hail Mary mission. And with the original and backup scientists dedicated to go on the Hail Mary dying days before the launch date of the crew, Eva Stratt scrambles to find a replacement and forces Ryland Grace aboard the Hail Mary against his will giving him a form of amnesia.
Overall, Andy Weir does a wonderful job of making you understand the science in the book and writing funny and likeable characters. If you love survival stories interjected with nerdy themes and funny space aliens (not Astrophage), this book is definitely for you! All I wish is that Andy Weir gives us more information about Earth, you give us hope of a Stratt and Grace reunion but of course Rocky had to get in the way!! I need to know how Earth is doing and I need to see Grace yell at Stratt.
Reviewed by Teen Volunteer, 12/22/25.