Grasshopper Jungle

by Translator Andrew Smith

A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book
Winner of the 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction


"Raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling." --Rolling Stone

“Grasshopper Jungle is simultaneously creepy and hilarious. Reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s in “Slaughterhouse Five,” in the best sense.” --New York Times Book Review
 

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.
You know what I mean.

Funny, intense, complex, and brave, Grasshopper Jungle brilliantly weaves together everything from testicle-dissolving genetically modified corn to the struggles of recession-era, small-town America in this groundbreaking coming-of-age stunner.

• ISBN10: 0142425001
• ISBN13: 9780142425008
• Publish Date: 17 February 2015 (first published 11 February 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Dutton Books for Young Readers
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142425008

Reviews

[Stephanie]

How does one explain this book, in all its weird, messed up glory? I'll come back to it.

[empressbrooke]

Two stars is a REALLY generous reflection of my response to this book. At the half-way point, I was very firmly in the 2-stars camp. As I pushed my way through the second half of the book, I was feeling pretty certain I was going to 1-star it. There were flashes of cleverness that made me want to like it much more than I did. There were also things in its narration style that reminded me of [b:Catch-22|168668|Catch-22 (Catch-22, #1)|Joseph Heller|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359882576s/168668.jpg|814330] and [b:Slaughterhouse-Five|4981|Slaughterhouse-Five|Kurt Vonnegut|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337996187s/4981.jpg|1683562], both of which I did not like very much.

Ultimately, I just became SO tired of all the talk about being horny and balls and penises and sperm and fucking and masturbating over and over and over and over and over again. And not from any place of feeling prudish, but from feeling exasperated by the very male notion that the main character's penis is just sooooo interesting. Pardon my eye rolling over here.

[rakesandrogues]

This book was just not for me. Longer review to come.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

Apparently the end of the world will happen in the Midwest. More specifically the end of the world will happen in Iowa. Andrew Smith’s novel, Grasshopper Jungle, is set in a fictional town in Iowa and is told from the point of view of a teenage boy, Austin, who only really thinks about two things…food and sex. So if you are easily offended, you may want to avoid this book because there is an awful lot about sex that some people might find offensive. “You know what I mean.”

I liked Grasshopper Jungle. More specifically, I liked Austin Szerba, the historian. I admired Austin’s observations about history and how he is connected to it. Austin shares a lot of his family history and the history of the inhabitants of his hometown in an effort to show how everything in the universe is connected.

I wasn’t so much a fan of Austin Szerba, the sexually confused teen. After a while, I became annoyed with Austin’s and Robby’s, his best friend, constant smoking, fowl language and bad attitudes. Perhaps that is a sign I am old. I just wanted Austin “to figure it out.” However, I have never questioned my sexual orientation so I recognize that it is a little unreasonable for me to be asking a fictional teenager to just figure it out and get on with it.

Grasshopper Jungle is an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There were many laugh out loud moments for me. While the future may look bleak and may involve Unstoppable Giant Praying Mantises that are very hungry and very horny, it reminded me that even in the bleakest and most confusing situations laughter can be the best medicine. Grasshopper Jungle receives a thumbs up.

[Angie]

I don't know which is more bizarre. Giant praying mantises taking over the world, or being in a horny, teenage boy's head for nearly 400 pages (while giant praying mantises take over the world). But that is Grasshopper Jungle in a nutshell, and I loved it! Our narrator is Austin Szerba, and he takes us through every single, seemingly insignificant event leading up to the end of the world. From getting beat up, to breaking into the antique shop, to finding shelter in an underground silo. It's a crazy week, but someone's got to tell the story.

I'll start with my main complaint in regards to Grasshopper Jungle: the narrative style. I never got use to it, but I was so engrossed in the tale, that I didn't knock a star off for it. Austin, literally, tells us everything whether it's relevant or not. History is his passion, so he doesn't miss any detail. This is all good, and provides for some entertaining anecdotes, but it also made some parts drag. He also repeats several things way too many times throughout his historical account of the end of the world. The writing is also quite stiff and formal feeling, despite being peppered with f-bombs and plenty of other colorful language.

Other than that, Grasshopper Jungle is a blast! It definitely reminded me of a SyFy Channel movie. Even though Austin is our narrator, he's kind of omniscient. He tells us what's going on all over the city though he clearly can't have known all of this, or even found it out later. I think it works, since in those cheesy movies we've got the main characters, plus random cut-scenes of the monster eating the extras. That is exactly what the Unstoppable Soldiers (the giant bugs) were doing.

The plot was a lot of fun, but my favorite part of Grasshopper Jungle was Austin struggling with his sexuality and being so open about it. He has a girlfriend, Shann, but he also gets thoughts and feelings about his best friend, Robby. Some of these thoughts include just him and Robby, others are about Robby and Shann. And of course, being a horny teenage boy, he thinks about threesomes. He doesn't know if he's gay, bisexual, or just "experimenting." He just knows that he loves Shann and Robby. I loved how in the end his sexuality was just left as something open or fluid, rather than having to make a choice.

In the end, I really liked Grasshopper Jungle. The writing did annoy me throughout, but I think the story more than made up for it. I especially loved that epilogue!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.