Grasshopper Jungle

Smith, A. (2014). Grasshopper jungle: A history. New York, New York: Dutton Books.

Austin and Robbie are best friends and Shann is Austin’s girlfriend.  Austin struggles with feelings about both Robbie and Shann.  One day, while skateboarding, Austin and Robbie get attacked by a gang, led by Grant Wallace.  They get their things stolen and thrown on a roof of a consignment store.  When they go to retrieve them, they sneak inside and discover mysterious objects.  While they were there, they see Grant Wallace take the globe that had Contained MI Plague Strain 412E.  They shatter the vial, and the people infected people turning into giant praying mantis. Austin, Robbie, and Shann go hide underground, in a bunker known as Eden.  This bunker was made in the 70’s by McKeon Industries, who also made the Contained Plague. They begin to explore and find out McKeon industries had been developing “unstoppable soldiers”, which were the praying mantises.  While trying to retrieve the film, Austin gets attacked.  Later, they learn that Robbie’s blood can defeat the soldiers, but when they return to the surface it is too late.  The world gets taken over by large praying mantises.  Shann has a baby from Austin name Arek, and Robbie and Austin live underground only leaving in the winter months to find food.  Due to language and content of this book, I would say the age-appropriate for this novel is high school students and older.  It talks a lot about sexuality and words like sperm, ball, and horny are used a lot in this book.  When I first picked up this book, I was hesitant because I prefer to read more historical books or realistic fiction.  As I kept reading, it captured my attention with its strange content.  I think anyone who reads this book, really has to be open to what they are going to read.   This story is science fiction because people infected with the plague of Strain 412E turn into praying mantises.  The setting takes place in the town of Ealing, Iowa, where the characters live.  The author chose to write this story in a retrospective style narration.  The story would venter off to omniscience narration.  The story has many angles to it, but you are able to keep up with everything that is going on.  The theme of story is history because Austin records his own life in this story and his ancestor’s life as well.