We Are the Ants

Zusatztext 2016 Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year A 2017 ALA Top Ten Rainbow List Title A beautiful! masterfully told story by someone who is at the top of his craft. Lambda Literary Unfailingly dramatic and crackling with characters who become real upon the page. Booklist ! starred review Bitterly funny! with a ray of hope amid bleakness. Kirkus Reviews ! starred review Hints of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five Highly recommended. School Library Journal ! starred review Hutchinson has crafted an unflinching portrait of the pain and confusion of young love and loss. Publishers Weekly ! starred review Wonderfully written bracingly smart and unusual. Shelf Awareness ! starred review Informationen zum Autor Shaun David Hutchinson Klappentext A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) From the author to watch ( Kirkus Reviews ) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an equal parts sarcastic and profound ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving. 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 itor let the worldand his painbe destroyed forever.We Are the Ants Chemistry: Extra Credit Project Life is bullshit. Consider your life for a moment. Think about all those little rituals that sustain you throughout your dayfrom the moment you wake up until that last, lonely midnight hour when you guzzle a gallon of NyQuil to drown out the persistent voice in your head. The one that whispers you should give up, give in, that tomorrow won't be better than today. Think about the absurdity of brushing your teeth, of arguing with your mother over the appropriateness of what you're wearing to school, of homework, of grade-point averages and boyfriends and hot school lunches. And life. Think about the absurdity of life. When you break down the things we do every day to their component pieces, you begin to understand how ridiculous they are. Like kissing, for instance. You wouldn't let a stranger off the street spit into your mouth, but you'll swap saliva with the boy or girl who makes your heart race and your pits sweat and gives you boners at the worst fucking times. You'll stick your tongue in his mouth or her mouth or their mouth, and let them reciprocate without stopping to consider where else their tongue has been, or whether they're giving you mouth herpes or mono or leftover morsels of their tuna-salad sandwich. We shave our legs and pluck our eyebrows and slather our bodies with creams and lotions. We starve ourselves so we can fit into the perfect pair ...

2016 Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year

A 2017 ALA Top Ten Rainbow List Title

“A beautiful, masterfully told story by someone who is at the top of his craft.” –Lambda Literary

“Unfailingly dramatic and crackling with characters who become real upon the page.” –Booklist, starred review

“Bitterly funny, with a ray of hope amid bleakness.” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Hints of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five… Highly recommended.” –School Library Journal, starred review

“Hutchinson has crafted an unflinching portrait of the pain and confusion of young love and loss.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Wonderfully written… bracingly smart and unusual.” –Shelf Awareness, starred review

Autorentext

Shaun David Hutchinson

Klappentext

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an “equal parts sarcastic and profound” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

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.

Zusammenfassung
From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an “equal parts sarcastic and profound” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

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.

Leseprobe
We Are the Ants

Chemistry: Extra Credit Project

Life is bullshit.

Consider your life for a moment. Think about all those little rituals that sustain you throughout your day—from the moment you wake up until that last, lonely midnight hour when you guzzle a gallon of NyQuil to drown out the persistent voice in your head. The one that whispers you should give up, give in, that tomorrow …