Grasshopper Jungle
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £4.49
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
If you're a fan of John Green, Michael Grant, Stephen King or Sally Green's Half Bad, get your pincers stuck into this.
In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend Robby have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things. This is the truth. This is history. It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it.
Funny, intense, complex and brave, Grasshopper Jungle is a groundbreaking, genre-bending, coming-of-age stunner.
Look out for the highly anticipated sequel Exile from Eden.
Praise for Grasshopper Jungle:
‘A cool/passionate, gay/straight, male/female, absurd/real, funny/moving, past/present, breezy/profound masterpiece of a book.' Michael Grant, bestselling author of the GONE series.
‘If you only read one book this year about sexually confused teens battling 6 foot tall head-chomping praying mantises in small town America, make it this one.' Charlie Higson, author of the bestselling Young Bond series.
‘Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith. You must read immediately. It’s an absolute joy. Scary, funny, sexy. Trust me.’ Jake Shears, lead singer of The Scissor Sisters
‘Not for the faint-hearted. Mutant grasshoppers, rampant lust – a tale of teen self discovery that grips like a mating mantis.’ Metro
Andrew Smith has always wanted to be a writer. After graduating college, he wrote for newspapers and radio stations, but found it wasn't the kind of writing he'd dreamed about doing. Born with an impulse to travel, Smith, the son of an immigrant, bounced around the world and from job to job, before settling down in Southern California. There, he got his first ‘real job’, as a teacher in an alternative educational program for at-risk teens, married, and moved to a rural mountain location. Smith has now written several award-winning YA novels including Winger, Stick, and Grasshopper Jungle.
About the author
Andrew Smith has always wanted to be a writer. After graduating college, he wrote for newspapers and radio stations, but found it wasn't the kind of writing he'd dreamed about doing. Born with an impulse to travel, Smith, the son of an immigrant, bounced around the world and from job to job, before settling down in Southern California. There, he got his first ‘real job’, as a teacher in an alternative educational program for at-risk teens, married, and moved to a rural mountain location. Smith has now written several award-winning YA novels including Winger, Stick, and Grasshopper Jungle.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Assuming the role of a historian (a wildly obscene historian), 16-year-old Austin Szerba chronicles the end of the world as it begins in his small Iowa town. Austin is in love with two people his girlfriend, Shann, and his best friend Robby; neither of them is okay with it but, as Austin frequently repeats, "I was so confused." This confusion worsens when a series of missteps results in the propagation of six-foot tall, superstrong, mantislike Unstoppable Soldiers that portend a new world order on Earth. Sex is everywhere in this novel (only some of it involving humans), but Smith (Winger) describes it in purposefully clinical and utterly unromantic terms, making connections between the Unstoppable Soldiers who "wanted only to fuck and eat" and human beings, whose preoccupations aren't, perhaps, so different. Filled with gonzo black humor, Smith's outrageous tale makes serious points about scientific research done in the name of patriotism and profit, the intersections between the personal and the global, the weight of history on the present, and the often out-of-control sexuality of 16-year-old boys. Ages 14 up.
