Sno-Isle Mock Printz discussion

Suggested by Kathleen

This is another one I really really wanted to love, but didn't. Not that my lack of love means it doesn't have literary quality.

What did you like about this one Kathleen?

The juxtaposition of completely realistic teen boy language/behavior and a wildly unrealistic plot is so well done and so imaginative. Usually these speculative fiction books for teen boys have barely sketched stereotypes as characters and count on the fast-moving plot for appeal--this one was a treat for me.

I would be surprised if this one doesn't make our cut (or the real committee's, at this point). It's dark and challenging, but brilliant. I also really appreciated his confusion about his sexual identity. I agree with Kathleen about the juxtaposition.

This certainly isn't like anything else I've read. Somehow I was disappointed, but I'm not sure why. I'd really enjoy and in-depth discussion of this one.

I love this a million times over and found it extremely well-written

This book is the love child of Kurt Vonnegut, Ted Chiang, and the script writer for Mars Attacks!

Austin and Robbie, especially Robbie, came alive for me.

I love it when a writer can pull off slamming comedy and horror or drama and comedy right up against each other. I never knew a grade-B monster flick type story could be told so well. It would be a great discussion.

I really, really loved this book until the very end. I wanted the boys to discover a funny, groddie Robbie bodily fluid way to kill the praying mantis monsters en-mass. (I imagined a sprinkler system or firetruck pumping out water with Robbie fluids.) Then I rethought the book and my expectations.

Most of the YA apocalyptic fiction focuses on how characters come together to overcome obstacles to restore balance. This book focuses on storytelling is the way characters understand themselves and their connections to the people they care about. In this book, the balance restored is the relationship between Austin and Robby.

I could go on about the circular structure and how Smith makes Vonnegut look like an amateur and character development and how Smith makes a certain word mean a thousand things, but Eden 5 is calling. :-)

There's not much I can add to the adoration already posted here. I loved this book. It made me laugh out loud and I kept reading parts aloud to friends who didn't get it because they hadn't been reading the whole book. It was so well put together. A bundle of contradictions: smooth and disjointed, sensitive and crass, deep and trivial, farcical and realistic.

Our winner!