“There are things in here: babies with two heads, insects as big as refrigerators, God, the devil, limbless warriors, rocket ships, sex, diving bells, theft, wars, monsters, internal combustion engines, love, cigarettes, joy, bomb shelters, pizza, and cruelty.”
From the first page a memorable ride begins, and it goes on until the last page, where it ends. Lewis Carroll said something like that once.
I won an ARC of Grasshopper Jungle from Penguin’s First to Read giveaway. Or rather, I used a significant amount of coins to guarantee a copy, because I just knew that this novel was going to be fantastic. I received nothing in return for this review aside from temporary (insert super sad face emoticon here) access to Grasshopper Jungle, which is to be released on January 29.
Austin Szerba is a chain-smoking, sexually-confused 16-year-old boy. He spends most of his time with his gay best friend Robby and his girlfriend Shann in their small Iowan hometown. Austin Szerba likes to tell history, and when a slippery slope starts the end of the world, he has a lot of history to tell.
Grasshopper Jungle is a hilarious adventure full of charm and wit, some twinges of horror and gore, round and lovable characters, and lots and lots and lots of history. The entire time I was reading, I kept praying this would soon be made into a movie.
It is, without a doubt, one of the best books of the year (and the year is so young!) and among one of the best books I’ve ever read.
In fact, the only thing I did not like about this ARC was that it was a digital galley rather than a permanent copy that I could reread over and over.
History shows that when a book is really good, you want to keep it close by on a shelf with other good books and revisit it from time to time. You know what I mean. Or at least you will when you follow my advice and read it!
Thank you Andrew Smith for writing this masterpiece and Penguin for giving a few readers the opportunity to read it before anyone else. *cue Hipster bragging rights*