Meet the four most unlikely heroes ever:
Teena McAuley: Queen Bee, first-class problem solver, resident heartbreaker.
Leo Starnick: UFO conspirator, pizza delivery boy, all-around slacker.
Evan Brighton: Baseball all-star, extreme virgin, Teena-worshipper.
Sarabeth Lewis: Straight-A student, weekend hermit, enemy of the color pink.
When Teena locks Leo, Evan, and Sarabeth in the basement during her biggest party of the year, she doesn’t plan on getting trapped in the Loser Dungeon herself. She can barely imagine a night with these dweebs—let alone a lifetime. But when an alien invasion destroys their entire Midwestern suburb, it looks like these unlikely friends are the last people on earth. Now, it’s up to them to save the world….
Aliens invade a classic American suburbia, and four stereotypical Breakfast Club are left alive in the aftermath; I was all over this! It promised humour, fighting intergalactic beings and dealing with old grudges and boy did it deliver! There was a good balance between the gross sci-fi alien stuff and the comic relief, however inappropriate it may be, but I loved it.
The story was told with alternate perspectives between all four characters, which allowed for different thoughts, and as they split up, different places across town and in the spaceship. Each character is a high school stereotype but I never felt annoyed with that fact, maybe because we were each of their heads, or because Palmer proved to show that they were each more than their labels. Either way, I adored each of them, even as they annoyed me or did the wrong thing. I especially loved Sarabeth, with her smarts, logical thinking and shy nature. There was continuous banter and pop references, which was very entertaining and gently broke up the near-death experiences and alien goop. The story was also occasionally interrupted by a omniscient narrator, which was interesting and very funny, especially when it is revealed who it is.
I adored this book and practically ate it up, with its odd mix of characters and scary encounters with giant aliens. Teena, Even, Leo and Sarabeth proved they were worth their moxie in an end of the world scenario, got past their fear and managed to work past their differences and past cliques to find out what has happened to their town. From the sweet budding romance and rekindling old friendships, to gunning down aliens and discovering the dead bodies of neighbours, I highly recommend this funny, cool and scary book.
Published 6th March 2014 by Hot Key Books. Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
This sounds really original and funny. I'll have to give it another go!
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