Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - We Are the Ants

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

32 reviews

greta_reads's review

dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

(sorry, english isn’t my first language) Wow. I really did not know what to rate this book. Because throughout most of it I really, really hated it. But I did not dislike it because of the way it was written or the story itself, but purely because of the fact that it had me in such a depressed and tense mood. The style that the story was written in wasn’t my favorite, but it felt authentic, even though I found it very hard to love the characters even if they were very relatable in part. So overall I‘m very torn, weather to recommend this book or not.

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louisallama's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

In theory this sounds like the kind of book I'd eat right up but unfortunately it wasn't. My two main issues are that I didn't connect with the characters, and that I wasn't satisfied with the way the book handled the world ending in 144 days. This book was by no means bad, it just wasn't for me.
I think I found it very hard to connect with Henry is because the book felt quite juvenile. Usually I'm fine with YA but for whatever reason it really didn't work for me this time. I'm not sure why but I was just completely uninvested in Henry's life and emotions. He has multiple very big and real problems that are poinient even to adults, and yet he never got past feeling like a whiny teenager to me.
The other problem is that there are a whole slew of deep, existential questions that could come of finding out that aliens have given you the choice to stop the world from ending in 144 days and this book explores basically none of them. I understand that it was more used as a vehicle for Henry deciding whether he wanted to live, without the trauma of making an actively suicidal main character for the whole book, but he ends up being very blasé about it. The closest we got to Henry asking these questions of himself, was him asking the extremely obvious, "am I going to push the button" throughout the book, as well as asking every character what they would do if they knew the world was going to end but they could stop it, both of which are resolved every time within a paragraph or two. I would think that this is something that I would agonise over, especially if I wasn't fully swayed one direction or the other. And while Henry's life truly is a steaming pile of garbage, linking this back with not feeling connected to him, I never actually felt like he was suicidal at any point, or ever had any conviction to press or not press the button.

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teaselkie's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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sppixie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It's really difficult to listen to the main character's inner thoughts and dialogue. He is sometimes logical, sometimes jumps to conclusions, sometimes totally irrational, etc. Perhaps this was intended to get into the mind of a character his age; however, I found it really annoying and was prone to whiplash.

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lovelymisanthrope's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I picked this up as a buddy read with a friend.
"We Are the Ants" follows a teenager named Henry. Over the past few years Henry has been abducted by aliens. On one of his most recent abductions, the aliens have told him that Earth will blow up in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. But the world has not been kind to Henry, and with some much sickness and heartbreak, why should he push the button?
I think if I had picked this up five years ago, I would have loved it, unfortunately, this book just did not have that punch I was expecting. The plot, themes, and mannerisms of the main character really reminded me of "Going Bovine" by: Libba Bray, and once I had that in my head, I just could not enjoy the story because it did not feel original too me.
I respect what this book did, and I think the themes and topics discussed are important and done so in a profound way. One of the big topics is suicide. Henry had someone very close to him commit suicide and it has really haunted him ever since. I have not seen a ton of media highlighting how suicide impacts those left behind, and how they work through their feelings of grief and arrive at a state of acceptance. This book shows Henry going through his process to get through this dark time, and it highlights how other characters who were impacted by this death have to deal with their grief in their own ways.
I would recommend this book to a young adult looking for a book that packs a punch and makes you question what makes life worth living.

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juliaisnotalright's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.0

Boy gets abducted by aliens and has the choice to stop the apocalypses.
But this book is so much more than science fiction, actually,

the aliens are just a metaphor for depression

It’s a book about mental health, dealing with depression, suicide and death in general.
The beginning was interesting but towards the middle it got a tiny bit boring but the ending was great but kinda predictable just like some of the plot.
IMO it’s kinda a mix of the perks of being a wallflower and Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe.
Would recommend to every teenager but check the trigger warnings !

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