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starrylight's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Wonderful book about life that makes you sit back and think about all the good things and bad humans have done to each other and the planet.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, Death of parent, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Murder, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Cursing, and Alcohol
shashy's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Drug use, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Violence, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Grief, Physical abuse, Death, and Suicidal thoughts
alba_marie's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
“This was a planet of things wrapped inside things. Food inside wrappers. Bodies inside clothing. Contempt inside smiles. Everything was hidden away.”
“I realised the most intelligent species on the planet still had to drive themselves. The cars possessed only the basic intellect…. if they had any brain at all.”
“I knew the earth was a real place in a dull and distant solar system where not a great deal happened. travel options for the locals were severely limited. The lifeforms were of middling intelligence and prone to violence, deep sexual embarrassment, bad poetry, and walking around in circles.”
“Humans couldn’t just swallow every book, chew different tomes simultaneously, or gulp down a word capsule in a matter of seconds. They can’t just pop a word capsule like us. Imagine not only being mortal but forced to take some of that precious and limited time to read. By the time they reached a stage where they can do anything with that knowledge, they’re dead.” Humans need to know what it is they are going to read. Is it a love story or a murder story? Or a story about aliens? Is it one of those books they read to feel clever? Or one they pretend to read in order to stay looking clever? ….Humans have written far too many.”
“I had no idea what ‘googling’ me meant, but I hardly felt it.”
“Marriage was a truly alien concept. there weren’t enough magazines on the planet to explain it”
“Humans spend a lot of time on the conditionals… I could be rich, I could be famous, I could have been hit by that bus, I could have been born with bigger breasts… they must exercise the conditional more than any other tense.”
“[The word] ‘Oh’ is verbal tea.”
I decided to try Matt Haig one more time... neither The Midnight Library nor How to Stop Time worked that for me and I always find hiss books hard to reat. But this one was recommended by people who I follow, so I decided to try it.
Turns out, this was probably the most amusing of the three – certainly the funniest – but what started as a hilarious 5 star first contact with humans story about an alien trying to blend in with humans and making plenty of comical and wry observations too quickly dragged into a self-help sludge.
It had so much potential. An alien was sent to Earth to impersonate Dr Andrew Martin, mathematician, and recent modern Einstein, who had made a discovery deemed too big for our dastardly human ways. The aliens had to take the bullets out of the loaded gun, so to speak, to stop humanity from acquiring technology that could lead them to do something drastic to the galaxy. A bit extreme, but I could get by that if it was ≤funny.
He does many silly things – like forgetting to wear clothes, mixing peanut butter and wine, referring to himself in 3rd person (because of course he's referring to the real Andrew Martin). He doesn't understand the world around him, that infidelity is bad or that dogs can't speak or why we drink coffee. His remarks on the world start of quite sarcastic and humorous.
But then he starts to "fall in love" with humans. He wants to be one. He wants to be Andrew Martin. He doesn't want to fulfil his mission and exterminate anyone who might know about the Reiman Hypothesis. I can get behind this but here we're getting on shaky grounds...
And then Matt Haig trots out the pure self-help feel-good mush. I guess this works for some readers, and done well – such as in Freya Simpson's The Last Library this can feel fun and heartwarming – but in the case of The Humans which started off hilarious and satirical, reminding me a lot of the belter episodes in Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully, it turns out that funny and feel-good go to together like peanut butter and wine (a combo the alien seems to like?? ewww).
The end did not work for me. I thought for a moment it was going to end at the moment he talked about choices and black holes and life – leaving it bittersweet and open-ended – but no, there's 20 more minutes of romcom mush! I mostly rolled my eyes through that whole bit. . And towards the end, there's even a section that lists 100... pieces of advice, I guess? From the alien to his fake son, Gulliver, which all felt like they should be tacked onto inspirational memes and shared by everyone's great aunt and grandma on facebook. I am not sure why that section was included?
This would have been MUCH better as a short story. A comical satire about the misadventures of a misguided alien trying to pretend to be human and failing. Maybe just a revised form of the first 2 hours or so. But without the middle with its fake, not-very-tense "action" and certainly not the end. I might have liked that.
Anyway. I've decided. Matt Haig and are just not meant to be. I give up!
TW: Attempted suicide, drugs, murder
“I realised the most intelligent species on the planet still had to drive themselves. The cars possessed only the basic intellect…. if they had any brain at all.”
“I knew the earth was a real place in a dull and distant solar system where not a great deal happened. travel options for the locals were severely limited. The lifeforms were of middling intelligence and prone to violence, deep sexual embarrassment, bad poetry, and walking around in circles.”
“Humans couldn’t just swallow every book, chew different tomes simultaneously, or gulp down a word capsule in a matter of seconds. They can’t just pop a word capsule like us. Imagine not only being mortal but forced to take some of that precious and limited time to read. By the time they reached a stage where they can do anything with that knowledge, they’re dead.” Humans need to know what it is they are going to read. Is it a love story or a murder story? Or a story about aliens? Is it one of those books they read to feel clever? Or one they pretend to read in order to stay looking clever? ….Humans have written far too many.”
“I had no idea what ‘googling’ me meant, but I hardly felt it.”
“Marriage was a truly alien concept. there weren’t enough magazines on the planet to explain it”
“Humans spend a lot of time on the conditionals… I could be rich, I could be famous, I could have been hit by that bus, I could have been born with bigger breasts… they must exercise the conditional more than any other tense.”
“[The word] ‘Oh’ is verbal tea.”
I decided to try Matt Haig one more time... neither The Midnight Library nor How to Stop Time worked that for me and I always find hiss books hard to reat. But this one was recommended by people who I follow, so I decided to try it.
Turns out, this was probably the most amusing of the three – certainly the funniest – but what started as a hilarious 5 star first contact with humans story about an alien trying to blend in with humans and making plenty of comical and wry observations too quickly dragged into a self-help sludge.
It had so much potential. An alien was sent to Earth to impersonate Dr Andrew Martin, mathematician, and recent modern Einstein, who had made a discovery deemed too big for our dastardly human ways. The aliens had to take the bullets out of the loaded gun, so to speak, to stop humanity from acquiring technology that could lead them to do something drastic to the galaxy. A bit extreme, but I could get by that if it was ≤funny.
He does many silly things – like forgetting to wear clothes, mixing peanut butter and wine, referring to himself in 3rd person (because of course he's referring to the real Andrew Martin). He doesn't understand the world around him, that infidelity is bad or that dogs can't speak or why we drink coffee. His remarks on the world start of quite sarcastic and humorous.
But then he starts to "fall in love" with humans. He wants to be one. He wants to be Andrew Martin. He doesn't want to fulfil his mission and exterminate anyone who might know about the Reiman Hypothesis. I can get behind this but here we're getting on shaky grounds...
And then Matt Haig trots out the pure self-help feel-good mush. I guess this works for some readers, and done well – such as in Freya Simpson's The Last Library this can feel fun and heartwarming – but in the case of The Humans which started off hilarious and satirical, reminding me a lot of the belter episodes in Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully, it turns out that funny and feel-good go to together like peanut butter and wine (a combo the alien seems to like?? ewww).
The end did not work for me.
This would have been MUCH better as a short story. A comical satire about the misadventures of a misguided alien trying to pretend to be human and failing. Maybe just a revised form of the first 2 hours or so. But without the middle with its fake, not-very-tense "action" and certainly not the end. I might have liked that.
Anyway. I've decided. Matt Haig and are just not meant to be. I give up!
TW: Attempted suicide, drugs, murder
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Drug use
solarorange's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
Minor: Blood, Drug use, and Gore
lilacsophie's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, and Grief
Minor: Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, Death, and Drug use
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