GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE

Smith, A. (2014). Grasshopper Jungle. New York, NY: Dutton Books.

Sixteen year old Austin Szebra thinks of himself as a historian, he has a girlfriend named Shann Collins who is ready to have sex.  Austin’s best friend is Robby Brees and he finds himself being sexually attracted to him as well, it’s a complicated love triangle. 

That’s not the only problem though, there’s a swarm of giant bugs that is threatening to devour what’s left of their town, Ealing, Iowa, which means the end to Earth.  They receive a message that they must go to the silo to get refuge from the 412E plaque.

Turns out that there are giant bugs are six-foot-tall man-eating praying mantises or the Unstoppable Soldiers are so powerful that as bullets hit them they sound like “candy sprinkles on unstoppable frosted cupcakes”.  Another words “the bullets had no effect at all on the monstrous beasts with blade-spike arms.”   They are unsuccessful in the killing of such creatures and set to start a new life in a place called Eden.

This is a great YA coming of age and science fiction book, it focuses on what teenage boys think about most, sex, immature, uncomfortable conversations, food and pushing boundaries.  Its relatable characters are real teenagers with real drama and despite their man-eating bugs, they also focus on life issues, like sexuality, friendship and bullies.

There’s bullies everywhere, even in science fiction books like this one, Austin and Robbie are beaten up by the school bullies while they were smoking in an alley in Grasshopper Jungle near the mall. An incident involving his nose blood and a jar filled with glowing mass mysteriously transformed the bullies into giant size sex hungry, man eating unstoppable creatures.  Crazy!

History was important to Austin, he wanted to record it so that humans wouldn’t do the same mistakes over and over, but mistakes are inevitable, if we don’t make them, we don’t learn from them.  We should all record the history of our lives, whether we have oversized man-eating insects or drama with our significant others.  Writing things on a journal lets you let out your emotions, like some form of therapy, and a place to record and reflect.  This book is from the list of required authors that write YA literature.

• This is Grasshopper Jungle book trailer by Andrew Smith.

• Take a look at Author Andrew Smith’s website and learn more about him and his other books.