Smith, A. (2014). Grasshopper
jungle: A history. New York, NY: Dutton Books.
Austin is a 16 year old boy who is best friends with Robby
Brees. Austin tells of his history and
the history of the end of the world.
Robby is gay and Austin is associated with him and people assume he is
also gay, but he is conflicted about that because he also loves his girlfriend,
Shannon. Robby and Austin get beat up
and that starts the end of the world.
After the fight Robby smears his blood in the asphalt that the plague
strain uses to grow and develop. The
strain takes over human hosts and turns into praying mantis type bugs. The boys and some others make it to a shelter
that was designed to protect them from the bugs, but the rest of the world is
unprepared for the Unstoppable Soldiers.
Grasshopper Jungle
is a science fiction book. At the
beginning you think things are going to be normal. A story about two friends and the struggles
they go through as teenagers, but that quickly turns into the end of the
world. The boys unwittingly witness the
unleash of man-eating mantises and this book is Austin telling the story of
what happened. Through the story we hear
a repetitive strain of Austin tying together his history and how things are
interconnected, of roads crossing and re-crossing until it is where he is
now. Smith does an excellent job of
giving us just enough normal to believe that this strain could happen, but also
enough unrealistic events to know this could never happen. This book is definitely for high school
students.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRu63kxyWtM
author interview
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