Review: We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
2:02 PM
We Are the Ants
By Shaun David Hutchinson
Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.Only he isn’t sure he wants to.
After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.
Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.
But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.
Wow! I can't even tell you how incredible We Are the Ants is. You truly need to experience it for yourself. I'm so annoyed that I've been putting off reading it as long as I have. If you're like me and prefer contemporary books and aren't really a fan of Sci-Fi, put that aside because this book is about so much more than aliens.
Henry has been randomly abducted by aliens since he was 13 and at 16 they told him the world is going to end on January 29, 2016, but he has the power to stop it if he presses a red button. His boyfriend committed suicide a year before, and Henry doesn't know if the world is worth saving. To make matters worse, he is tormented at school, and his home life is challenging. His mom is still grieving the loss of her husband after he ran out on their family, his brother Charlie got his girlfriend pregnant and dropped out of college, and his grandmother is slowly losing her memory.
After reading the first page, I was hooked. Henry is cynical and just plain pissed-off that his boyfriend Jesse committed suicide. He thinks that he is to blame and that the world shouldn't exist without Jesse in it. I could feel how hurt and heartbroken Henry is. He wants to know the reason behind Jesse's death and spends a lot of time obsessing over what he could have done to prevent it.
"Grief is an ocean, and guilt the undertow that pulls me beneath the waves and drowns me."
I loved seeing the family dynamic. I actually related to Henry's relationship with his grandmother. He knows that his grandmother is losing her memory but doesn't understand the extent of her loss since there are some memories he wouldn't mind losing. Those scenes were the most difficult for me to read since I recently lost my grandmother and she also suffered from memory loss. It's frustrating when the people we love can't remember something as seemingly simple as you calling that afternoon or what your name is.
"I'm losing my memories. It's like someone's broken into my piggy bank and is robbing me one penny at a time. It's happening so slowly, I can hardly tell what's missing."
Something that I really appreciate about this book is that Henry's sexuality isn't treated as a big deal. Yes, he is gay, but this isn't a coming out story. This book is about a kid that is dealing with hardship and has to figure out if those hardships are reason enough that the world should end. The author's writing is fantastic and witty and brilliant. I never wanted it to end because it was so beautiful. Please do yourself a favor and read We Are the Ants.
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