Giant mutant insects as a potent metaphor for a teenager's confused sexuality. A remarkably gloppy, sloppy, crass book, and a lot of fun. ( )

I read this on the recommendation of an author I follow and enjoy quite a bit. I should have picked this up sooner since I did enjoy Smith's MARBURY LENS, but well there are so many books out there.

On the one hand I'm like "Well. I didn't think the world would end in this manner." on the other hand I'M RUNNING SCREAMING IN TERROR BECAUSE THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE COME TRUE.

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This book was great. Well-written, bold, funny, absurd and honest.

I do have one major complaint though that I didn't really become fully aware of until I got to the end. Maybe this is the result of having a story told by an adolescent boy, I don't know. But the female characters are treated as backdrop, even his best female friend/girlfriend. She's pretty two-dimensional and while he professes to love her, we're never really shown WHY (except that she is hot and endlessly accommodating of his sometimes-sexual relationship with his best male friend.) This point I could have forgiven, except that during the epilogue it is really driven home that the real relationship is between the two male characters, who go out adventuring in what has become (SPOILER) a post-apocalyptic wasteland while she has to stay home. Boring. :/ I would have liked her to have a more active role in the outcome instead of being a bland bystander.

That all being said, the rest of it was amazing. I look forward to reading more of Andrew Smith's work. ( )

This book is creative, original and unexpected. The ending comes as a surprise but I think the author pulls it off. At the start there seem to be three main characters but one of them gets sidelined quite early on, which is a pity. The narrator sounds about 12 even though he's meant to be 16 and there is far too much sperm and naming of balls, which might have been funny the first time, but quickly becomes very repetitive. For me the best thing about this book was the writing (because it is very unique) and the worst thing about it was the writing (because it gets annoying, particularly with all the repetition). ( )

Whenever I read a young adult book, I’m always thinking in the back of my head to what kind of reader would this book appeal? As I read Grasshopper Jungle, I could not quite figure out which of my students would like this book. The short sentences and chapters and invasion of the giant praying mantises premise might appeal to the reluctant reader but the fractured, looping storytelling takes too long to get to the action. Reluctant readers like action. I even became impatient. Austin, the 16-year-old narrator, has two best friends, Robby and Shann and he loves them both. In fact, Robby came out as gay and Austin is confused about his own sexual identity because he’s going out with Shann. The setting is modern day, 2013 or so Iowa and Austin spends most of the novel wondering whether he is normal or not because he’s attracted to both Robby and Shann. He is not completely gay but he is not completely straight. Hasn’t he heard of bisexuality in Ealing, Iowa? The book has a big science fiction-y element to it but it will not appeal to science fiction fans because the explanations for the giant, man-eating bugs come fairly late in the book. The threads that connect the history that Austin has written over the years are vague and raise more questions than they answer. How did he know about the relationship his great-grandfather had? What is the point of his brother fighting in Afghanistan and having “his balls blown off” and losing the lower part of his leg? The character development of two of the most important characters to the story, Robby and Shann, is weak. We learn more about Ollie Jungfrau than we do about the two of them. I like different, I like quirky in a novel but this just did not work for me.
Do people feel obligated to give a book a stellar review because they got an advanced reader copy? I call this the tyranny of the 5 stars. Maybe I shouldn’t be so honest or I won’t get any more books from First to Read. Hmmmm.
Disclaimer: I received this ARC free from Penguin’s First to Read and this did not influence my review. In addition, I was not compensated for this review.
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