Author Andrew Smith's personal mantra is "Keep YA weird." Mission accomplished, Mr. Smith. Singlehandedly, I might add. This is one weird book, like few I've ever read before. If that quote from Portal 2 seems random, it is, yet it still sums up the overall plot of this book as well as anything I could probably generate on my own.
The basics are this. The book is narrated by Austin Szreba, a teenager of Polish descent in the economically depressed town of Earling, Iowa. Like many teens, Andrew is a jumbled mess of hormones, complicated by the fact his best friend, Robbie, is gay and, while he is very much in love with his girlfriend Shann, he loves Robbie too. You would think this seemingly mundane life problem would take a backseat to the six foot tall praying mantises that start hatching out of the townspeople and eating everyone in sight. You would be wrong.
This book is many things, straightforward is not one of them. Andrew interweaves his family history, stories of a mad scientist who created the mantis men, his relationship problems and everyday struggles, even his brother's combat injury in Afghanistan, in a rich, often humorous, sometimes poignant tapestry. It's much more a coming of age story set against a darkly comic (if not gruesome) apocalypse, rather than an end-of-the-world thriller. Not at all what I was expecting. One critic said Smith must have been channeling the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut, and the book is very reminiscent of books like Slaughterhouse Five. The ending, in particular, took me completely by surprise.
It's not my favorite book, but if you don't mind a detour into the eccentric, it's worth the read. Like the last book I reviewed, The Fifth Wave, this one is also being adapted into a movie, with Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Shaun of the Dead) tapped to direct. I think it should be right up his alley.
-Mike, out.
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