We Are the Ants

If you knew the world was going to end, but you had the power to stop it, would you?

Henry Denton is caught in that place of galactic convergence we all eventually drift towards. He's a teenager that knows quite a lot about some things. Still, he's begun to see that some questions in life don't have the answers we thought they would, don't have answers at all, or have answers that change so rapidly from person to person and from moment to moment that the energy that fueled the Big Bang doesn't seem quite as astonishing in comparison. As he trudges forward, clinging to the normative of being 'okay' for his sake and the sake of those around him, his anger, grief, and all the questions they've spawned about his worth and responsibility in show more the grand scheme of things battle for focus. Throw in a shiny red button, a choice weighing heavily on his shoulders, and the mysterious Diego Vega, a boy bright enough to outshine his night-sky namesake, the star Vega— 'the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere'— and Henry's ability to say whether he would end the world or not grows more obfuscated by the minute.

Hutchinson's We Are the Ants is a solid YA novel that blends fantasy and realism, creating an interestingly amalgamated perspective on the human experience. It explores the bonds, both those broken and re-forming, that tether us to family, friends, and to life at large with humor populating the same pages as heartbreak. It's not a book I would have sought out on my own; if I hadn't seen it recommended as a possible read for a challenge, I might not have picked it up when I spotted it at the library.

My pattern in fantasy reads leans more to a visit to Faerie with a serving of dystopic happenings than 'a galaxy far, far away;' I wouldn't consider it a preference, just what my experience has been so far. This includes my dips into YA. Limited experience with something akin aside, I liked We Are the Ants. Hutchinson weaves moving moments of growth and development of perspective into Henry's arc that make it a worthwhile read. He also manages to capture the overwhelming power of grief; how it eclipses, confuses, and shapes us in its ripples. I imagine that I would have fallen a bit in love with this book had I read it as a teen. It took me back to the times when those hugely looming questions were first bumbling about in my mind— made me handle the hot coals of a few memories and trace a path back to the experiences that build us and the choices we make, the chaos that we try and force into patterns and potential.

Hutchinson's handling of depression, bullying, grief, relationships, and family left a huge impression on me. I think everyone is quite used to any and all of these areas being romanticized in some way. We're used to the sitcom encapsulation. Depression becomes a blurb on a blog, a definition of a person's entirety summed up in some reblogs so many can identify with while safely avoiding identifying with another person. Even the best of us tut over the sensational spread of a picture or video of a victim of bullying without pausing to hear the voice of the victimized or we co-opt their experience(s) through our need to address bullying as a whole even as the individual gets lost in the crowd. Relationships of any kind— family, friend, or new love— go from 0 to 60 with the barest hint of context being smothered by compulsion because compulsion is what sells, what heralds headlines and status updates. I didn't feel that Hutchinson built up drama to attract the reader, I felt that he sketched a realistic corner of the world for Henry Denton and deftly laid bare his struggles for the reader to experience along with him. It's a sketch we need more in fiction, one that stokes a maturing empathy in the reader rather than the flash-fire of romantic notions that crumble just as fast as we put energy into building them and continuously propping them up.

Whether you're just beginning to ask the big questions or you're question-weary and answer-hardened, We Are the Ants is worth a read and Hutchinson is an author I wouldn't mind revisiting. It's a significant book to read when you're feeling insignificant, a book that might provoke a thought or two as well as a laugh. show less

This is another book that I read with my friend Alyssa for a book club that she's doing for one of her classes. It's also a book that I've had my eye on for a while, and I'm glad that I finally got the chance to read it. It definitely didn't disappoint.

Henry Denton has had a rough year. His grandmother's Alzheimer's keeps getting worse, his brother just dropped out of college because his girlfriend is pregnant, his mother is struggling to keep the family together, and his boyfriend committed suicide. Among all of these things, Henry keeps getting abducted by aliens, who have given him the opportunity to save the world from impending disaster. Henry just doesn't know if its worth saving. Until he meets Diego Vega.

This story is just show more heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Shaun David Hutchinson has crafted a story that feels so realistic, yet it is intertwined with all of these theories about how the world is going to end, theories that pull the reader from important points in the story. In fact, these interruptions coincide with Henry's own interruptions from his own life, giving the reader a glimpse into Henry's mind and thought process.

It's just so real. I can't really think of any other way to describe this book. Hutchinson's prose makes you feel so many emotions from beginning to end that by the time you finish the book, you are exhausted. Major book hangover. It was hard for me to get into my next book because I was still feeling all of these emotions from We Are the Ants.

Hutchinson also deals with suicide in a very realistic and important way. He not only shows how suicide affects the friends and family left behind, but he shows that the depression that Henry's boyfriend (I think it was Jesse?) was feeling wasn't something that was just going to "go away;" it was a sickness, an illness that Jesse had to deal with, but in the end, he wasn't able to. I can't really think of any other YA books that deal with suicide in this way that I've read, and I think it's incredibly important that this one does.

This is a complex, insightful, all-encompassing book that will leave you thinking long after it's over. And maybe even prompt you to want to read it again. show less

"That's what this was all about, after all. Making choices."

A great deal befalls narrator Henry in this book, as well as the various cast around him; life is neither a kind, orderly, nor predetermined arc. Perhaps the brutal parts are hyperbolic in their number compared to most people's lives, but these are things that we as readers have experienced or know of befalling others. While the story focuses on the adolescent main characters, it's noteworthy that the adults in the story are all coping variously with their own slings and arrows. At the end of the day, it's not about what happens but about what ones chooses to do thereafter and Henry at last arrives at that realization.

A fast, clean read and an unexpectedly satisfying show more experience, Hutchinson's book is a trail mix of irreverent prose, pop culture rhythms, adolescent angst and anger, cravings for affection, and some really mature thoughts about life, the universe, and everything. I'm really glad I came across this.

A final note: I picked up "we are the ants" because of its frequent appearance on Banned Book lists and can see how the same people that want to ban this consider Vonnegut and Heller pornographic without ever having read either. show less

"Eat the bacon, Henry."

There are so many reasons to love this story. The writing is phenomenal. It absolutely sucks you in - but not because this is a warm and fuzzy story. No, no, this is a very real, very well done frightening story. Because Henry's life is all too real for many. So is Diego, Marcus, Jesse, Charlie, Audrey's lives and even Nana. All of these characters are so real and true and flawed.

The sluggers are such an interesting twist and something that I didn't know I'd love until I was waiting for their next message. Each horrible and confusing time Henry struggled to understand, I struggled too. And when he wasn't so sure what was right, to push that button or not, neither did I.

Life is beautiful and hard. This story show more reminds us of both. show less

4,5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable. I don't have first hand experience of losing someone to suicide or of being in an abusive relationship, but I felt like this was a very good representation on what going through those things could be like. I especially thought that Henry and Marcus' relationship was portrayed very well. This is pretty much how I would imagine someone who stays with an abusive partner would justify the other's actions.

The main message I got out from this was that you have to save yourself if you want to survive, no one else can be happy for you. Just like you can't be the reason for someone else's happiness. I liked how there were no miracle cures, no "love concurs all" plot devices and how real it all felt. Life is ugly, show more and difficult, and often it'd be easier to just give up. But life is also beautiful, and amazing, and worth living. show less

4.5 stars bumped up to 5 because I tend to give 5 stars to books that make me cry and this did several times. It's basically 13 Reasons Why with alien abductions. The writing is beautiful, poignant, and heart-breaking. Henry randomly gets abducted by aliens and one day they gave him the choice to let the world end in January 2016 or press a red button to save the world. Henry's boyfriend killed himself and Henry struggled to find reasons the world should be saved. Over the months until D-Day, he navigates his relationships with his family, friends, and live interests through his grief. In between the chapters, there are potential scenarios of how the world would end that are great (my favourite, rather gruesome one, involved nanobots). show more Henry's relationship with the school bully gave me a lot of complicated feelings. A worthwhile read about depression, grief, love, and acceptance. show less

You know that satisfied feeling you have after reading a book that just pulled you right in? That was me when I finished reading We are the Ants. There were so many moments where the situation, or the author's way with words just pulled me in and held me close. I'm not a teenage boy, being raised by a single mom. My boyfriend didn't commit suicide. I'm not having a rough time at school. My brother and his girlfriend aren't expecting a baby. My grandmother isn't losing her memories. I'm not periodically being abducted by aliens. It's not up to me to save the world. But dammit-- I was right there with Henry, every step of the way.

And lest you think I'm kidding about the way I got sucked into the words on the page, try this one on for show more size:
"Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long dead and buried deep."

I'm definitely going to look for more by this author. show less