We Are The Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson Book Review

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time, and probably associating it with some decisions I make for myself. 

Henry Denton is a teenager from a rather troublesome part of Florida. I mean, before everywhere of Florida became a cesspool thanks to DeSantis. He has a mother with a waitressing job she hates and has too much self-doubt to explore her abilities as a cook, a grandmother with growing memory loss, a loser older brother who just got a girl pregnant, but the worst part is his ex-boyfriend Jesse, who months ago hung himself in his room. No goodbye note, no farewell, just ended it all. And there’s a guy Henry hooks up with now called Marcus who is absolutely not the right one for him. Whenever they aren’t alone, he taunts Henry with the nickname “Space Boy”.

Where does Space Boy come from, besides Henry’s love for science? More than once, he’s actually been abducted by aliens. His nicknames for them are the sluggers. And they always return him, but sometimes not for days. The important thing is, they have given him 144 days to make a choice. They have a button. If he doesn’t press it by then, Earth will be no more. If he does, Earth is saved. But Henry is not certain he really wants to press the button. What good has life ever dealt him?

Something very special about We Are The Ants is it asks each and every one of us a question, a modern day “To Be Or Not To Be”, and it does so with a gravity and a melancholy pragmatism that is often glossed over in young adult fiction. Let me explain without words like “melancholy pragmatism”. Henry is bullied so much that it makes my own memories of sixth grade feel like a walk in the park. Henry is alone. Jesse left him. Maybe Jesse killed himself because Henry wasn’t good enough for him. What’s really the point of him going on in life? The book is an allegory for suicide, the thought of life being too painful and meaningless to find something worth caring about. Henry has no problems letting the world end, so if the world is going to end, what’s the point of trying to be happy? What’s the point in showing interest in the new boy Diego who has taken a liking to him? This must be how some suicidal people feel; if they don’t want to live anymore, and they have no hope of things getting better, why try to fool themselves with these false promises the world is giving them?

I will say it was aggravating how forgiving Henry was towards Marcus at certain times, and (hope I don’t sound too much like a prick about this) Henry also sometimes thinks about Jesse too much to the point of repetition. I got a little tired here and there of the constant “Why did he kill himself?” But everything else about this book is golden, a story of a sad and cynical kid from a dysfunctional life that might not be repairable. It will take me a long time to forget these people. Henry’s mom having too much fear to take the steps to be happy again in her work, Henry’s grandmother slowly losing herself, Henry’s older obnoxious brother having a baby, Henry having a potential new boyfriend…We might be the ants, but with books like these, we can make an ant farm out of the world where we work together and don’t turn our backs.

My grade: 4 and a half stars out of 5