Customer Reviews

Alienated

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a book I read to my son every night and he loved it. It is about two boys, Vince and Gene, who write a newsletter about aliens in their community. Most everyone believes it to be a work of fiction, but it really is the result of genuine reporting. They find out the guidance counselor at their school, Walter, is the nephew of the most evil alien in existence and they expose him. This book details all of their encounters/adventures with various aliens, including Walter's twin sister, who is intent on capturing Walter and bringing him back home. Vince and Gene end up helping Walter escape from her. If you have a child who enjoys science fiction and aliens, then they will really enjoy this book. The author did a good job of tapping into how pre-teen boys think, and even I enjoyed reading this book. It is for ages 8-12, and I think that is about right.

What if Bigfoot, Squid boy, Arachnid Boy, Crumble Bun and Mold Man were all aliens living among us? Two 14 year old boys, Vince and Gene, not only believe aliens live among us, they seek them out for interviews for their special newsletter "The Globe". Gene will do anything to get a story while Vince is happy to just be a writer. Toss in a few crazy aliens with weird powers and you have the makings of a funny story. Completely silly scenarios take place throughout the book as the boys experience being bowled over by a giant mold ball, watch their favorite doughnut shop crumble and discover their school counselor is actually an evil alien bent on finding her twin brother and turning aliens into amusements for her Uncle's birthday party. There is an added plot twist when one of the characters realizes they are an alien, too, complete with tentacles that think for themselves. The book is very silly and puts me in mind of "The Dragon Slayer Academy Series" and "Captain Underpants." However, several lessons are taught throughout the book making it perfect for tweens. One such lesson is "treat others exactly as you expect to be treated." The book is very "cleanly" written without sexual content, compromising situations or language.

If you enjoy silly adventures complete with strange and wierd aliens then this is the book for you. My 10 year old daughter highly enjoyed reading Alienated and is hoping that the authors will be writing part II very soon. She sums it up as being funny & exciting and had a hard time deciding between Mold Man and Crumb Top as her favorite alien character.

Take the light-hearted fun of the jokey aliens in Men in Black but substitute Kevin Arnold for Will Smith's character and you've got Alienated. For the longest time in kid literature, boys could read about either sports or killing things in the woods to survive; there was very little in between, and humor was nonexistent. Then along came books like Captain Underpants, and the fictional world for boys began to change.

I like that this book offers something entertaining for kids 9-12. I like that a lot. That's the teacher side of me. The writer side of me wishes the authors had spent just a wee bit more time editing and perhaps (horrors!) getting a critical opinion before going to press. In an early scene, our heroes are out on their bikes at a spooky, foggy park (nice description, lads!), interviewing Mold Man when a black SUV drives up. To Mold Man's query, Gene replies, "Calm down... I bet it's just some kids from Fulton Junior High." Really? Driving an SUV? Perhaps the junior high was offering AP classes in Driver's Ed. I digress....

There are many bemusing scenes in this book, and it manages to carry the enthusiastic joie de vivre of its age group. But there are little nagging flaws that prompt me to give it 4 stars instead of 5. (The death of Gene's father is treated as just another gag in the story; there is a huge inflatable Snowman on the roof of Gene's house because "Gene's father had put it up there ten years ago before he died of a tropical disease that he'd picked up on a business trip." Gene and his mom don't take it down because they're both afraid of heights. Ha ha ha--No.)

For reluctant readers (of either gender), this is a great here-read-this-I-promise-you'll-be-entertained book to drag them toward bibliophilia. Established hardcore readers in this age bracket may simply be annoyed by its persistent snarkiness.

I find this book very facinating. I just turned 12 and loved this book. It has many weird, strange, and exciting things. Some of my favorite aliens are Mold man, Calamari Girl, and Crumb Top. Read to find out more. Great for the avid weird and strang or alien loving person.

Gave to my son for his review since he is the target audience. He loved it.

This book was fun and enjoyable and is great for someone between 8 and 14 or 15. I tells the story of two friends who discover that there are aliens living on earth and who then put out a newsletter about the aliens. I thought it was decent as a children's book but as an adult I did not think it was great scifi. So if you have a child between 8 and 15 it would be good for them. But as an adult look elsewhere for a good scifi book.

By a 9 year old boy: "Alienated is a slow paced book but it keeps you predicting what will happen next. Its about a boy named Gene who tries to stop an alien's evil sister from destroying the Earth for the alien's uncle's birthday. The characters are well-developed and conversation was a bit contrived though entertaining. I think the book was overall a saisfactory read and I would recommend it. Do not try and rush through or you will miss the details."

By the adult mother: "I recommend this book to chapter loving intermediate readers,4th & 6th graders. My child read this book in a little over 4 days. Although it was slower paced then other series he has read like The Awfully Beastly Business books or the G'Hooley books-- he was entertained and enjoyed it very much. If you are interested in reading about a young superhero boy, friendship and like science fiction-- this is a must read."

This book really ought to have worked better than it does. The premise, enthusiastically ripped off from Men in Black, has plenty of potential, and the author(s) have nicely warped senses of humor. But I found the book dragging more and more so that I had to force myself to keep reading it. Then at the halfway point the plot exploded into chaos as it followed the separate adventures of several different characters, and it flowed a lot better; however, whenever it focused back upon the main characters it began to drag again. After thinking about it, I believe I have identified the problems.

The first problem is that not for a single moment is the so-called friendship between main characters Gene Brennick and Vince Haskell remotely believable. Oh, we're TOLD over and over again what great friends they are, but what we see would be better described as an abusive relationship. Gene is such a selfish immature irresponsible jerk that we think less of Vince simply for associating with him. Though it turns out that Gene has some issues, they don't really either explain or justify his behavior, and Vince's descent to Gene's level doesn't make either of them more likable.

The second problem is that EVERY character in this novel behaves like a moron. I don't know if as some reviewers charge, the authors think that kids are stupid so it's OK to write down to them, but the fact is that they have populated their novel with blithering idiots. Our two heroes are supposed to be budding investigative reporters, but the extent of their "investigation" involves repeatedly stealing contact information from Gene's Uncle Fred who happens to know a lot of aliens. Of course if they had any brains, they'd have stolen all the contact info at one time, rather than sneaking a look every time they want a new interviewee because once he figured out that they were looking at it, Uncle Fred could have hidden his address book where they'd never find it. Fortunately, though Uncle Fred knows exactly what they are doing and doesn't approve of it, he's not smart enough to foil them by hiding the address book. Beyond dialing a phone and taking down what their interviewees tell them our heroes display no reportorial instincts whatsoever. Mysterious black SUV's that follow them, bizarrely behaving school guidance counselors, don't even register upon our heroes' consciousness, until somebody's sunglasses slip revealing eyes of different colors.

Then there is the stupidity displayed by the aliens themselves. Already in hiding from the government and now apparently threatened by some evil alien who is rounding them all up, they have no compunctions about giving interviews to a couple of kid reporters who swipe their phone numbers and cold call them. Only one of them expresses anything like a plausible motive: extreme loneliness, and she lets herself be talked into destroying an entire building by our nitwit heroes. Fortunately the stupidity displayed by the police and other people is much greater; without even being neuralized, they cheerfully convince themselves that they are imagining things despite the fact that a donut shop and classroom wall stay dissolved. But the topper is the fellow whose glasses slip; he admits his alien status rather freely and then just ASSUMES that our two heroes won't publish a story about him.

WRONG! In addition it is never made clear why the staff of the Globe who unlike our two dimwits have never actually met any aliens choose to believe, though in the end one turns out to have a surprise excuse.

Finally, I have problems with some of the humor on display here. As other reviewers have pointed out, the death of Gene's father is played for laughs. I don't see how anyone could have thought this was funny, and several admittedly funny lines make no sense in context.

Too bad, a great concept ruined by characters so stupid they are harder to believe than aliens living among us.

I didn't like this story in the first few pages. Comical-sounding aliens and characters were being shoved at you very quickly and it was difficult to keep everything straight. Apparently you have to believe that every alien in the universe is represented in a woody patch near a trailer park in a crater out on the desert. What sort of deep forest capable of hiding all these creatures exists in a desert town? After I got used to the characters I liked the story more. The main characters, two junior high school boys and the girl they both idolize, work together to put out a newsletter on the alien happenings of the town - which no one seems to care about or believe, until it attracts the attention of a vicious female monster who has tracked down her relative in this town and vows to destroy him (and perhaps the entire planet while she's at it).

In my opinion I think 9-12 year olds will enjoy this story. The aliens are not nightmare-inducing, they are sort of cute. The kids are normal and brave and they wind up defending the earth and the town and, well I can't reveal the ending. But the ending was a good one. This book grew on me and I give it 4 stars. It could have used a bit more editing and proofreading in the beginning but overall it is good.

I would like to have given this book more stars based on the idea, which I think is a lot of fun, but couldn't get past the characters and the way the story was actually written. The main character, Gene, is so painfully unlikable that even the obligatory lesson-learned doesn't seem to do anything to endear him to the reader or make him grow as a character. None of the characters are really developed or grow in this, they are just sort of presented and there you have it. I could see the possibility for turning this into a series but I have to say I would have zero interest in reading anything further. I also had a hard time determining what age range this was written for; it was a pretty easy read but some off-handed comments might be above some younger readers' comprehension. You know what it is? The names of the aliens seemed to dumb this narrative down for me, where 'boy' or 'girl' seems to be tacked on to the end of whatever oddity they have and that's good enough. Maybe it is supposed to reflect the younger characters' immaturity but I feel like it lacks creativity. As an adult who sometimes enjoys reading young adult books, I wouldn't recommend this book to another adult. Perhaps a very young adult reader would enjoy this but I don't really see it appealing to any youths in their mid to late teens.