I was trying to read "Deathwalk" by Matt Braun. It's awful. I hate it. I stopped at Chapter 10 after a whole day of trying to read it and I don't want to go back. The author chose the most shitty way to write this book, where each chapter is an even but they're only loosely connected. 10 chapters in and I don't see any hint of a story arch, of a bigger picture. So I think I'm gonna say "screw it" at this point. Over the weekend, when we were out antiquing and book crawling, my wife picked up "The Martian" behind my back because I showed her the trailers to the movie. She said if I want to see the movie, I have to read the book first. I haven't read a single page yet, but I think I'll give it an honest shot. After all, she did the same thing to me with the John Carter series and I ended up liking the books more than the movie.
I can't imagine the movie will be the same experience as the book, at best it will be a different kind of fun. The book goes into a lot of fun with science lectures that I don't think will translate well. I really loved the book, I'd say it's worth a shot.
I've wondered the same thing. The first trailer has a bit of voiceover that's directly quoting the book which sort of makes sense given that he's writing everything in his journal/log. My guess is that it will alternate between him talking as a narrator and talking on-screen given the context of the event.
I'm six chapters in and I like it so far. The jump from Watney's journal to the characters at NASA was unexpected. I'm actually thinking about skipping those chapters altogether because I like how how isolated things feel from Watney's perspective. Though, I'm afraid I'll miss important points if I do.
There was a point in the book where I had just read a long section from the nasa perspective and found myself wishing it would just go back to Watney only like the first part of the book had been. A few pages later I got my wish for some time because his comms went down. I think a little less on the nasa parts would be fine but overall they're a necessary part of the narrative.