There's "weird", then there's "WEIRD", then there's "WEIRD Weird". Well, Grasshopper Jungle goes even beyond THAT.“Good books are about everything.” true that. The scale of grasshopper jungle varies from "Sexually confused protag in a love triangle" to "end of the world by praying mantises"
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.
Yep. Just as the summary says, this book is full of sexually active human-eating praying mantises, raging hormones and Polish Ancestors. Like I said, a whole new level of weird, and I like it. The book was soooooo funny! Andrew Smith's writing style is
Austin's ancestral history that makes up for about half of the book is really refreshing and It fits together with the present perfectly.
Maybe it was the style of the book but I could never take the "end-of-the-world" thing seriously. Oh, but it happens, It definitely does. So yeah a few things in the book were unbelievable to me, but I'm not complaining!
To sum it up, this book is weird and hilarious and I have never read anything like it, so if you're tired of the stereotypical YA Post-apocalyptic fiction, check this out!
(Don't check it out if you find lots of swearing, um.. procreating praying mantises and horny protagonists disturbing.)
I'd give it
3.7 STARS
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