miduhadi 's review for:

The Humans by Matt Haig

3.0

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A predictable plot and ending. But I did like the style of writing and the humor in this book, which saved it. An alien is sent to eliminate a mathematician who has made a revolutionary discovery and is quite ahead of his time. Humans aren't supposed to get where he is at that point in the overall timeline. But the alien comes to Earth and sees it for the wonderful place it is yada yada.

Here are some cute quotes:

1. Humans, as a rule, don’t like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead. But the definition of mad, on Earth, seems to be very unclear and inconsistent. What is perfectly sane in one era turns out to be insane in another. The earliest humans walked around naked with no problem. Certain humans, in humid rainforests mainly, still do so. So, we must conclude that madness is sometimes a question of time, and sometimes of postcode.

Basically, the key rule is, if you want to appear sane on Earth you have to be in the right place, wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and only stepping on the right kind of grass.

2. I was drinking a cup of tea. I actually enjoyed tea. It was so much better than coffee. It tasted like comfort. Isobel nodded. She too was drinking tea. The tea seemed to be making things better. It was a hot drink made of leaves, used in times of crisis as a means of restoring normality.

3. ‘Oh,’ I said, which I knew wasn’t in context. But I had nothing else to say. ‘Oh’ was always the word I resorted to, the one that filled empty spaces. It was verbal tea.