We Are the Ants

By: Shaun David Hutchinson

Narrated by: Gibson Frazier

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an “equal parts sarcastic and profound” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.

Only he isn’t sure he wants to.

After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.

Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.

But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.

Amazing beyond doubt

This book was so amazing. I've read the book and I needed to hear the audio book for my driving adventures. This book has changed my life and I emailed the author to thank him for this amazing book! Forever love this!!

Bait and switch

First, I think if I had gone into this book understanding that it was a coming of age story, that dealt with bullying, dysfunctional families, suicide, gay relationships, Alzheimers, etc., I would have rated it 4 stars, because it does a good job in those areas and maintained my interest (in spite of some repetitiveness). Fortunately I like coming of age stories.

Secondly, I nearly abandoned the book early on because the first couple of chapters came across very juvenile, with a lot of focus on masterbation. As an over 60 female, I thought maybe I was not the audience for this book. I don't know why the author choose to start the book this way and it is not reflective of the rest of the book.

Disappointingly, the supposed premise of the book ("Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button."), plays a relatively minor role in the book, other than marking Henry for teasing by his peers. Do not go into this book expecting a rousing science fiction story.

Nietzsche's Philosophy

Nietzsche's Philosophy contemplates the meaning of values and their significance to human existence.
I believe the deeper meaning of this stories is derived from this philosophy.
Found pieces of myself in many of the characters and couldn’t help but cry at multiple points of the story. 5/5

A trivial feel-good story

The story is easy to follow, but not as deep as it pretends to be.

Loved it!!

I was actually surprised to find myself disappointed when it ended. I want to know about the lives of the characters after at least a little but I suppose that would undermine the lesson at the end of the book. Very amazing read.