A review by nerfherder86
The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

4.0

Another good but weird book from Andrew Smith. There are several plotlines and characters to follow, which eventually interconnect in interesting ways; sometimes with Smith's books I get frustrated waiting for those connections to show up, because it's like you're reading three different books at first, and he's forcing you to change gears so often. This one wasn't too bad on that account, with a little bit of patience. In present day, 15 year old Ariel tells his new adoptive American brother Max the story of Ariel's rescue from a wartorn European country and his life in a refugee camp. Ariel also is narrating to us, the reader, his and Max's experiences at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. We also get the third person story of the "Melting Man" and his bizarre drive across country. And, there's the journal entries of Dr. Alexander Merrie on his Arctic expedition at the turn of the 20th century. Whew! Oh yeah, and there is a resurrected crow called Alex and some weird science. But all of this juggling of characters and time periods starts to make more sense as the puzzle pieces fall into place, and it's kinda cool in the end. There are some pretty funny scenes, especially at camp, with Max's adolescent male vocabulary obsession (if you've read it you know what I mean!) and pranks the boys play on their annoying counselor. But also some pretty serious stuff in the war scenes. Anyway, very unique book.