Date Of Review:  September 16, 2023
Review Left On GoodReads:  Yes https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5822312618 

Bad Asstronauts

Author:   Grady Hendrix
Narrated By: Ezra Buzzington
Started:   September 16, 2023
Finished:   September 16, 2023
Genre:   sci-fi, fantasy
Length:  3 hours 44 mins 52 secs
Part Of A Series:   no
Type Of Book:  audiobook
Goodreads Link:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60553263-badasstronauts 

Review:

I love this book.  If I had read it instead of listening to it, I would have probably only liked it.  Sometimes an audiobook makes all the difference.

I got sucked into this so hard.  I was rooting for the folks of Redneck NASA.  The ending was a bit abrupt.  That, or I was just really into the story.  

I think it helped me being poor growing up as I knew exactly what type of person he was described & who in my life would have fit that role.  Yes, even us in Southern California have these folks in our lives - it's not just a southern states thing.

Goodreads Description:

Melville, South Carolina was out of money, it was out of jobs, it was out of hope, and today it was out of astronauts. There were only two to begin with, and now one is stuck on the abandoned International Space Station after his mission went bad. With NASA’s budget cut to the bone there’s no one to bring him back home again, but his cousin, Walter Reddie, isn’t about to let that happen. Tanked on vodka, Walter's a good ol' boy wash-out from the original Shuttle Program and he’ll be damned if his cousin is going to die like a dog in space. And so he decides to build a rocket. If America won’t rescue its astronauts, he’ll do it himself.

Violating numerous laws, common sense, logic, and reason, Walter Reddie becomes a lightning rod for people who aren’t ready to lay down and die just yet. His "redneck NASA" becomes the promised land for losers, drifters, rocket junkies, pyromaniacs, misfits, dreamers, science nerds, and astro-hippies who still believe that the future of America is in space. But chances are they’ll blow themselves up, get arrested, or kill each other before they ever get into low earth orbit.