The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The title “We Are the Ants” is written vertically down the centre of the upper half of the cover, in lowercase white writing. The author’s name “Shaun David Hutchinson” is written at the bottom of the cover in very small, white lowercase lettering. The background shows a sky of various shades of blue above the dark silhouettes of trees. A lot of white and blue lines are around the sky, forming a circle in the lower left corner that ripples out to the upper right corner. Around the title, white lines that zig-zag to form various triangles of different sizes. /end]

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Content Warning:

Taken from author’s website:

• Suicide
• Suicidal Thoughts
• Sexual Abuse
• Attempted Rape
• Physical Abuse
• Bullying
• Depressive behavior
• Violence
• Self Harm
• Miscarriage

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Summary:

From the author of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a brand-new 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.

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Notes:

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook. There is a Kindle edition.

A list of awards and honours that this book has received, taken from the author’s website:

• CCBC Choices (Cooperative Children’s Book Council)
• Georgia Peach Book Award Master List
• Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best
• Nutmeg Children’s Book Award Nominee (CT)
• NYPL Best Books for Teens
• Texas Tayshas Reading List
• ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults – Top Ten
• ALA Rainbow List Top Ten

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Archivist Comments:

I just want to know why he keeps getting “periodically abducted by aliens”. Is it the same aliens??

Does anyone remember that book “The Humans” by Matt Haig? I don’t know I just think this one is giving off a bit of a similar vibe. Although I quite liked that one, so maybe that’s a good sign.

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