Synopses & Reviews
Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury. There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But hes trying to kill them. Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid hes losing his mind. Conner tells Jack its going to be okay. But its not. Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds.
Review
Booklist Editors Choice 2010
Publishers Weekly “This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch. Smith's characters are very well developed and the ruined alternate universe they travel through is both surreal and believable.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"Mixing a trauma reckoning with dark, apocalyptic fantasy and notes of psychological horror, this commandeering novels multiplicity is elusively complex yet never complicated: although the many gut-quivering story elements are not clearly defined, they always speak to each other, and Smith wisely leaves much up to the reader. People will talk about this book and try to figure it out and maybe try to shake it off. But they wont be able to.” --Booklist, STARRED review
“An engrossing horror/fantasy hybrid…Nightmarish imagery is chillingly effective, and the pacing superbly builds suspense.” --Kirkus Reviews"Andrew Smith's The Marbury Lens will own you, mind, body and soul. You can't put it down, but you'll want to. You'll want to put it down and walk away but that is not happening. The Marbury Lens crawls inside your head and won't leave. Scary, creepy, awful and awesome. What a cool book!" --Michael Grant, author of Gone and Hunger
“Andrew Smith (Ghost Medicine; In the Path of Falling Objects) once again proves his ability to penetrate complex psyches and mature themes within the framework of a spellbinding plot… Smith keeps the tension between Marbury and the present-day worlds as taut as the tightrope Jack walks. As readers, we feel the addictive pull of The Marbury Lens every bit as strongly as the hero does. Just try to put this book down.” --Shelf Awareness
“Teen readers will be riveted by this story which explores alternate worlds and realities while posing important questions about loyalty, revenge, and grief.” --SLJ Teen
Previous praise for Andrew Smith: “...16-year-old Jonah and his brother, Simon, two years younger, embark on a brutal but mesmerizing road trip that steers an unswerving course toward tragedy. …[O]lder teens will be riveted.”—Kirkus Reviews for In the Path of Falling Objects
“Smiths first novel, a deceptively simple coming-of-age story, defies expectations via its sublime imagery and its elliptical narrative structure. … While the summer climaxes with jarring violence, the possibility of a true departure never materializes: the outside world is held at bay by the inscrutable questions unveiled in the book's conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review for Ghost Medicine
“… Troy wishes to be lost, but his greatest hope is to be found, and Ghost Medicine beautifully captures that paradox in this timeless and tender coming-of-age story. Not only will it inspire readers to prod the boundaries of their own courage, but it will also remind them that life and love are precious and fleeting.”—School Library Journal for Ghost Medicine
2008 Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) Nominee for Ghost Medicine
Review
Booklist Editors Choice 2010
Publishers Weekly “This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch. Smith's characters are very well developed and the ruined alternate universe they travel through is both surreal and believable.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"Mixing a trauma reckoning with dark, apocalyptic fantasy and notes of psychological horror, this commandeering novels multiplicity is elusively complex yet never complicated: although the many gut-quivering story elements are not clearly defined, they always speak to each other, and Smith wisely leaves much up to the reader. People will talk about this book and try to figure it out and maybe try to shake it off. But they wont be able to.” --Booklist, STARRED review
“An engrossing horror/fantasy hybrid…Nightmarish imagery is chillingly effective, and the pacing superbly builds suspense.” --Kirkus Reviews"Andrew Smith's The Marbury Lens will own you, mind, body and soul. You can't put it down, but you'll want to. You'll want to put it down and walk away but that is not happening. The Marbury Lens crawls inside your head and won't leave. Scary, creepy, awful and awesome. What a cool book!" --Michael Grant, author of Gone and Hunger
“Andrew Smith (Ghost Medicine; In the Path of Falling Objects) once again proves his ability to penetrate complex psyches and mature themes within the framework of a spellbinding plot… Smith keeps the tension between Marbury and the present-day worlds as taut as the tightrope Jack walks. As readers, we feel the addictive pull of The Marbury Lens every bit as strongly as the hero does. Just try to put this book down.” --Shelf Awareness
“Teen readers will be riveted by this story which explores alternate worlds and realities while posing important questions about loyalty, revenge, and grief.” --SLJ Teen
Previous praise for Andrew Smith: “...16-year-old Jonah and his brother, Simon, two years younger, embark on a brutal but mesmerizing road trip that steers an unswerving course toward tragedy. …[O]lder teens will be riveted.”—Kirkus Reviews for In the Path of Falling Objects
“Smiths first novel, a deceptively simple coming-of-age story, defies expectations via its sublime imagery and its elliptical narrative structure. … While the summer climaxes with jarring violence, the possibility of a true departure never materializes: the outside world is held at bay by the inscrutable questions unveiled in the book's conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review for Ghost Medicine
“… Troy wishes to be lost, but his greatest hope is to be found, and Ghost Medicine beautifully captures that paradox in this timeless and tender coming-of-age story. Not only will it inspire readers to prod the boundaries of their own courage, but it will also remind them that life and love are precious and fleeting.”—School Library Journal for Ghost Medicine
2008 Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) Nominee for Ghost Medicine
Review
“
A literary joy to behold. . . . reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts
Slaughterhouse Five, in the best sense.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"This raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling sci-fi novel defies description - it's best to go into it with an open mind and allow yourself to be first drawn in, then blown away."
—Rolling Stone
“[Grasshopper Jungle] reads more like an absurdist Middlesex… and is all the better for it. A-”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Nuanced, gross, funny and poignant, it's wildly original.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
“If you appreciate kooky humor, sentences that bite, and a nuanced understanding of human beings complicated natures and inexplicable actions, then you, too, will love Smiths bold, bizarre, and beautiful novel.”
—The Boston Globe
“The end of the world comes with neither a bang nor a whimper but with a dark chuckle and the ominous click-click of giant insect mandibles in this irreverent, strangely tender new novel by Andrew Smith. This but hints at the intricately structured, profound, profanity-laced narrative between these radioactive-green covers.”
—The Washington Post
“Andrew Smiths writing grabs you. He takes phrases and turns them into recurring motifs that punctuate the story, until by the end you start to expect them, maybe even mutter them to yourself. And the way that he takes all these seemingly disparate plot strands and weaves them together is masterful… Once you get lost in Grasshopper Jungle you wont want to be found.” —Geekdad.com
“No author writing for teens today can match Andrew Smiths mastery of the grotesque, the authentic experiences of teenage boys or the way one seamlessly becomes a metaphor for the other.”
—BookPage, Top February Teen Pick
"A meanderingly funny, weirdly compelling and thoroughly brilliant chronicle of ‘the end of the world, and shit like that...a mighty good book."
—Kirkus, starred review
"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."
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Original, honest, and extraordinary… pushes the boundaries of young adult literature."
—School Library Journal, starred review
“Grasshopper Jungle plays like a classic rock album, a killing machine of a book built for the masses that also dives effortlessly into more challenging, deeper regions of emotion. Above all else, when it's done you want to play it all over again. It's sexy, gory, hilarious, and refreshingly amoral. I wish I'd had this book when I was fifteen. It almost makes me sad that it took twenty years to finally find what I'd been looking for.”
—Jake Shears, lead singer of Scissor Sisters
“Grasshopper Jungle is a cool/passionate, gay/straight, male/female, absurd/real, funny/moving, past/present, breezy/profound masterpiece of a book. Every time you think you've figured it out, you haven't. Every time you're sure Andrew Smith must do this, he does that instead. Grasshopper Jungle almost defies description because description can only rob the reader of the pleasure of surrendering to a master storyteller. Original, weird, sexy, thought-provoking and guaranteed to stir controversy. One hell of a book.”
—Michael Grant, New York Times bestselling author of the Gone series
“I found myself saying over and over again, ‘Where in the heck is he going with this? all the while turning the pages as fast as I could. Mostly I kept thinking, This was a brave book to write.”
—Terry Brooks, author of the Shannara series
“Andrew Smith is the bravest storyteller I know. Grasshopper Jungle is the most intelligent and gripping book I've read in over a decade. I didn't move for two days until I had it finished. Trust me. Pick it up right now. It's a masterpiece.”
—A. S. King, Printz Honor-winning author of Ask the Passengers and Please Ignore Vera Dietz
“In Grasshopper Jungle, its as if Andrew Smith is somehow possessed by the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut. This book is nothing short of a brilliant, hilarious thrill-ride that is instantly infectious. But, the most beautiful thing about Grasshopper Jungle has nothing to do with the absurd or out-of-this-world. It is the deft hand by which Smith explores teenage love and sexuality that is truly breathtaking. In writing a history of the end of the world, Smith may have just made history himself.”
—John Corey Whaley, Printz Award-winning author of Where Things Come Back
“Grasshopper Jungle is about the end of the world. And everything in between.”
—Alex London, author of Proxy
“Austins narrative voice fizzes with catchphrases that keep the reader on track as he dives into history and backstory. His obsessively repetitive but somehow endearing style calls to mind Vonnegut and Heller. This novel approaches its own edge of sophisticated brutality, sensory and intellectual overload, and sheer weirdness, and then jumps right off.”
—BCCB
Synopsis
A 16-year-old boy who escapes a kidnapper thinks he can forget his trauma, but instead, he loses his grip on reality and believes he's part of an alternate world called Marbury.
Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury.
There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he's trying to kill them.
Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he's losing his mind.
Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds.
"An engrossing horror/fantasy hybrid...Nightmarish imagery is chillingly effective, and the pacing superbly builds suspense." -- Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
"Raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling." --Rolling Stone
Grasshopper Jungle is simultaneously creepy and hilarious. Reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts 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.
Its 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.
About the Author
Andrew Smith is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, including the critically acclaimed
Winger and
The Marbury Lens. He is a native-born Californian who spent most of his formative years traveling the world. His university studies focused on Political Science, Journalism, and Literature. He has published numerous short stories and articles.
Grasshopper Jungle is his seventh novel. He lives in Southern California. You can learn more at authorandrewsmith.com and follow him on Twitter: @marburyjack.