A review by cloudjules
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

2.0

I must be missing something here. I've heard so many people gushing over this book, but pretty much everything about it fell flat to me. I found the narration repetitive and the messages heavy-handed, and a lot of the pop culture references read like forced attempts at sounding ~young and hip~.
It didn't help that I found the main character to be extremely unlikeable. I understand he's having a very hard time dealing with an obviously traumatic event, but that doesn't change the fact that he's selfish to the point of barely considering the rest of humanity when trying to decide whether or not the world should end. He also came across as very whiny and judgemental. I imagine this was the intention, but it's overdone and by the time he actually displays some character growth it was too little, too late.

Spoiler

But possibly what annoyed me the most was his relationship with Diego, which felt unnecessarily complicated. Henry has obvious issues with self-sabotage, but when they're breaking up every five minutes it's just like... maybe it's not working out and they just aren't meant to be together? We're never given enough reason to root for their relationship anyway.

And I suppose that the alien thing is supposed to be a metaphor or whatever, but I was also really disappointed by how little it was explored. It made the book feel mis-marketed, like I was tricked into reading regular contemporary YA when I was looking for sci-fi.
All in all, very disappointing.