Review: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
This is not a sponsored review.
GoodReads Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa. To make matters worse, Austin's hormones are totally oblivious; they don't care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He's stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it's up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition.
My Review: This book is like S.A. Bodeen’s The Compound, on steroids. Up until I picked this up, The Compound was by far the weirdest (and grossest) book I had ever ventured to read, as I am not a huge science fiction fan. I picked this bad boy up from my school library, simply because I am a big Andrew Smith fan. As many of you know I read one of his other books, Wringer, this year and I gave it “5 out of 5 Chicken Pot Pies”. Also, since then Andrew and I have had semi-regular interactions on twitter. As a personal note, Andrew is active on his twitter page, and super humble towards his fans.
The character development in this book bordered on brilliant. I really enjoyed reading about the development of each of the many complex relationships in this book. Austin is such a quirky character. His explorations into his sexual orientation/identity are very honest, and I imagine this would be very relatable to any teen who is questioning, or may have gone through a questioning phase before. Wringer also had strong and interesting LGBTQ characters. I’d be interested to see if this trend continues in Andrew’s other books. Despite not being a member of the LGBTQ community, I found both Andrew and his gay best friend Robby, to be super relatable characters in a number of other ways. On the other hand, I found Shann to be kind of irritating and shallow.
The setting is phenomenal. Especially Eden. It was very reminiscent of S.A. Bodeen’s the Compound, but also “ the Hatch” from the hit television show LOST. I was impressed with the attention to detail that Andrew put into describing Eden.
Really I am impressed with the detail, setting, and character development as a whole. It made me feel like I was watching a movie. I really hope that it makes it to the big screen in the next few years, Though I am not going to lie I have absolutely no idea how they would recreate the giant grasshoppers, but we have alien movies so why not grasshoppers? Also come to think of it, fans of Rick Yancey’s the Fifth Wave might also like Grasshopper Jungle.
My one critique of this book is the depth of the family history that Austin goes into. In the beginning of the book it’s an adorable quirk that makes the character stand out from other characters in various other YA Books, but as the book goes on some of the history gets too hard to follow. Austin goes back through multiple generations of his family history recalling everything from how one of his relatives made urinals, to how another dealt with an accidental pregnancy. Also in many cases the descriptions (particularly of the scenes involving sex) were a little graphic, and unnecessary. Once again, in the beginning of the book it didn’t bother me but as the book wore on it became a little too much.
Overall, I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars. It will almost definitely be featured again, later this year, in my “Top 15 of 2015″.
Also, I just heard news that there will be a SEQUEL!
