This is my review of We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson.
Henry Denton has been abducted by aliens, Sluggers as he calls them, with black eyes on stalks and nipples on their chest. In almost the same way you train a dog, Henry has been taught by the aliens that he has a choice to make: Save the Earth or let it be destroyed. The aliens don’t seem to care about where they drop him off because Henry is usually left in random spots all around town and at times without clothing. We learn right away that our main protagonist is experiencing an incredible loss due to suicide. Jesse was the only thing that kept Henry together and now that he’s gone, We Are the Ants starts us off with Henry experiencing an existential crisis. He lives at home with his mom, nana, and his brother Charlie.
Diego Vega was definitely a mystery and his character reminded me, with incredible detail, to a few actors: Ezra Miller (Patrick) from The Perks of Being a Wall Flower and Sami Outalbali (Rahim) from Sex Education; more Rahim than Patrick, but given the nature of the novel and its audience, I couldn’t help but see both of those characters in Diego. He introduces himself one day to Henry, after seeing him eat alone during lunch. Henry is confused by his actions and tries continuously to avoid Diego. His fear of attachment due to Jesse’s suicide is still fresh with him, as he struggles with accepting and not accepting that he is gone, but also escaping the thought that plagues him almost the entire book: Did Jesse kill himself because of me? Diego persists on being Henry’s friend and in turn ends up making Marcus extremely jealous.
Marcus is Henry’s bully and his side piece. Marcus has a lackey name Adrian. When they weren’t pushing Henry around or calling him ‘space boy’, Marcus would reach out to Henry to get intimate. From the bathroom stalls, at Marcus’s Jacuzzi, and in his car, practically anywhere they can. When Marcus finds out that Henry is spending more time with Diego and not him, Marcus turns the heat on tormenting and torturing Henry, so much so that Henry becomes the victim in a brutal locker room beat down where Henry nearly losses his life and Marcus becomes the central suspect. Marcus’s character gets way more aggressive as the novel goes on and his methods end up being down right criminal and dangerous. Adrian, on the other hand, is more lackey to Marcus than anything else, but just as dangerous.
While we got the gist of a majority of characters, Audrey was a weird character and I have several feelings about her. Her appearances were random, her back story was dropped into the novel when necessary and so was her bravery. I felt I learned more from Zooey, Charlie’s girlfriend, than I did Audrey, and given how important Audrey was to Henry's growth through Jesse’s suicide, you would think a bit more would go into her arc than just being an enigma that popped in from time to time to help curve the edge of Henry's life. Perhaps that was the symbolism. We do, however, learn as we go on that Audrey was a lot closer to Jesse than Henry was. Not romantically, of course, but their friendship had developed long before Jesse and Henry got together. Even more so, long before Henry found out about Jesse’s current state of mind, which is where Audrey’s character shines the light later on to ease Henry about his involvement in Henry’s suicide.
Unfortunately with
all novels, there is always something to be wary about and We Are The Ants is
no exception. While the story does have an energy to it, I found that most of
the themes were scattered haphazardly, especially the whole alien bit. That
part of the novel is never fully completed and I found myself waiting for the
end of world. Towards the end, when all hell
had broken loose among Henry, Marcus, Audrey, and Diego, I truly felt that
Henry would get beamed up into the sky and would be given his final chance of
deciding. The version in my head that I would have wanted to read would have ended with
Henry deciding to destroy earth. Henry would get beamed back down and as the
ruckus by the ballpark slowed down, a brilliant white light would appear in the
night sky. Everyone would turn in amazement and Henry’s final line: “This was
it.” It would have closed the final arc of the book, the aliens, and would have
given us the final bit of closure that was left unresolved. Everyone else got
their closure, which is satisfying, but the aliens having destroyed the earth
would have given us closure on whether or not Henry was full of it. But more on this later on.
The novel is an easy read and a page turner. I more so enjoyed the occasional "end of the world" anecdotes that Shaun added. The one thing I’m unsure of is whether or not it played any vital role to the story arcs. Those chapters didn’t seem to lend the story any traction or assist Henry in anyway - which half way through I realized was just about a boy coming to grips with the suicide of his boyfriend and had absolutely nothing to do with aliens or cataclysmic end of the world stuff - But were instead a concept anthology, which by all means add more; I’m a big fan.
And what about those aliens? What about the end of the world? What about his abductions? After a day of letting the story and characters blend in my mind and heart, I can’t help but feel the story arcs around Henry were more symbolic than anything else. In my explanation of Audrey being a "weird character", I’ll add that she represented the present time frame, Diego played the pivotal role of the future time frame, and the trials and tribulations we endured along with Henry were his past, including Marcus, Jesse, and his family. The reference in the story ‘Remember the past, Live the present, and Write the future’ strengthens the statement a lot more when given the above context. And the aliens? Well, if there ever was a way to cope with suicide, I would say claiming aliens abducted you is pretty far out there (pun intended). Whether or not the aliens did abduct him is irrelevant. What matters here is how Henry, unbeknownst to him, moves closer to realizing that he is unable to control what has already occurred. The aliens were simply representative of that.
Overall, the novel has a colorful array of characters and what a way great way to infuse “Aliens” in to a story about a boy coming to grips with reality. The short anecdotal chapters about the end of the world were incredible. And if this story carries any optimism, it’s that regardless of what happens, you write your future and if you don’t hear this often, then let me say it. Everything will turn out alright.
Happy Readings Everyone. Till next time!
Shaun David Hutchinson is a Young Adult author who is well known for his fiction titles The Deathday Letter, The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, and At the Edge of the Universe. He has an anthology series, Violent Ends and Feral Youth, as well as a Nonfiction novel titled Brave Face: A Memoir. He is expected to release A Complicated Love Story Set in Space in spring 2021 and as of this post, The State of Us was released back in June 2020. He currently resides in South Florida. You can find more information on his website at www.shaundavidhutchinson.com and you can pick up one of his novels at your local book store, Barnes & Nobles, or online in E-Reader formats for Kindle and Nook.
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