Scan barcode
A review by booksnpunks
The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith
5.0
2nd reread: This book is freaking glorious, can’t wait to write on it.
Reread: This book is absolutely magnificent and I think is now one of my favourites. Andrew Smith is an incredibly clever writer and is horrendously underrated inside the Young Adult genre. The motifs inside this novel were hard-hitting - the main character Ariel was constantly inside liminal spaces. As a refugee, he has no home and no family. Instead he is resurrected through symbolic "de-extinction", he is not allowed to die but is constantly saved by American Men who are obsessed with progress. Yet through this progress, they inevitably destroy the things they try to save.
Ariel's story is reflected through time. He is saved by hiding inside a refrigerator that metaphorically freezes him in time, so that when he exits from it he walks out into a completely new life as a resurrected being. The inclusion of the Dr Merrie's diary entries from the 1880s detail an expedition to find Katkov's Beast that has been trapped in ice. Ariel, as a refugee from the Middle East, becomes a figure of America's problems condensed into one child. They attempt to rescue him from the ice just as they recuse the Beast - both figures are not allowed to stay inside the ice (or refrigerator) where they hinder progress.
What Smith shows, however, is the danger of progress, especially masculine progress, shown through the character of the melting man. He is a by-product of the Merrie-Seymour Division experiments and seeks destruction wherever he drives. As well as Smith's prose taking inspiration from the erratic yet captivating writer of Stephen King, the degeneration of humanity through the masculine need to control and manipulate the future becomes the ultimate downfall for the characters. Yet almost none of them repent their actions, and progress is instead left to run it's deadly course.
Not only is this a book about the horrors of science, but it also shows the reality of terror and war in the Middle East. It does not shy away from the harsh abuse that goes unnoticed worldwide. The majority of the book, which centers on boys camp that Ariel and his new brother attend, similarly show the complex nature of technology and friendship and the extent to which science has control over life and nature. Smith again takes inspiration from famous coming-of-age novels, but also the sexuality of writers such as Bukowski in it's crudeness.
The book is immensely troubling but also very complicated in its message, and this is why I love it so much. If you would like to read Young Adult fiction that blends science-fiction, coming-of-age, horror, and terrorism, then you need to read this novel.
--
HIS WRITING WAS SO MUCH LIKE STEPHEN KING IT MADE ME WANT TO LEAK WATER FROM MY EYES. Okay so this book is about a kid who is adopted into an American family after surviving this mass genocide, and he goes to a camp with his older brother. Their Dad is mental and does some crazy experiments and so there's all this weird genetic and science stuff going on. PLUS A MENTAL DUDE WHO HEARS THE VOICE OF JOSEPH STALIN IN HIS HEAD DRIVING AROUND THROUGH THE WHOLE BOOK, IT WAS SO GREAT.
Andrew Smith is such a good writer. The bits about the boys in the camp were like some Bukowski novel and the rest was just mental. READ ALL OF HIS BOOKS.
Reread: This book is absolutely magnificent and I think is now one of my favourites. Andrew Smith is an incredibly clever writer and is horrendously underrated inside the Young Adult genre. The motifs inside this novel were hard-hitting - the main character Ariel was constantly inside liminal spaces. As a refugee, he has no home and no family. Instead he is resurrected through symbolic "de-extinction", he is not allowed to die but is constantly saved by American Men who are obsessed with progress. Yet through this progress, they inevitably destroy the things they try to save.
Ariel's story is reflected through time. He is saved by hiding inside a refrigerator that metaphorically freezes him in time, so that when he exits from it he walks out into a completely new life as a resurrected being. The inclusion of the Dr Merrie's diary entries from the 1880s detail an expedition to find Katkov's Beast that has been trapped in ice. Ariel, as a refugee from the Middle East, becomes a figure of America's problems condensed into one child. They attempt to rescue him from the ice just as they recuse the Beast - both figures are not allowed to stay inside the ice (or refrigerator) where they hinder progress.
What Smith shows, however, is the danger of progress, especially masculine progress, shown through the character of the melting man. He is a by-product of the Merrie-Seymour Division experiments and seeks destruction wherever he drives. As well as Smith's prose taking inspiration from the erratic yet captivating writer of Stephen King, the degeneration of humanity through the masculine need to control and manipulate the future becomes the ultimate downfall for the characters. Yet almost none of them repent their actions, and progress is instead left to run it's deadly course.
Not only is this a book about the horrors of science, but it also shows the reality of terror and war in the Middle East. It does not shy away from the harsh abuse that goes unnoticed worldwide. The majority of the book, which centers on boys camp that Ariel and his new brother attend, similarly show the complex nature of technology and friendship and the extent to which science has control over life and nature. Smith again takes inspiration from famous coming-of-age novels, but also the sexuality of writers such as Bukowski in it's crudeness.
The book is immensely troubling but also very complicated in its message, and this is why I love it so much. If you would like to read Young Adult fiction that blends science-fiction, coming-of-age, horror, and terrorism, then you need to read this novel.
--
HIS WRITING WAS SO MUCH LIKE STEPHEN KING IT MADE ME WANT TO LEAK WATER FROM MY EYES. Okay so this book is about a kid who is adopted into an American family after surviving this mass genocide, and he goes to a camp with his older brother. Their Dad is mental and does some crazy experiments and so there's all this weird genetic and science stuff going on. PLUS A MENTAL DUDE WHO HEARS THE VOICE OF JOSEPH STALIN IN HIS HEAD DRIVING AROUND THROUGH THE WHOLE BOOK, IT WAS SO GREAT.
Andrew Smith is such a good writer. The bits about the boys in the camp were like some Bukowski novel and the rest was just mental. READ ALL OF HIS BOOKS.