Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith is one of those young adult books that you hear a lot of praise for.  As its protagonist is a sexually confused teenage boy, I thought it fit my February reading theme perfectly.  Having just finished it, I'm honestly not sure what I read.  I am, however, sure that I enjoyed it.  Beware, this review will contain minor spoilers.

The plot of Grasshopper Jungle is made up of two distinct parts--the realistic story of Austin Szerba's struggle to find his sexual identity and the not-so-realistic story of how his hometown, Ealing, Iowa is taken over by gigantic, genetically-modified grasshoppers.  Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann Collins, and his best friend, Robby Brees.  He fantasizes about them both and has sexual experiences with both of them throughout the novel.  Deeply confused, he doesn't want to hurt either Robby (who is gay) or Shann (who is straight), but he can't make a decision on who he wants to be with, or even how he defines his sexuality.  Making everything even messier is the advent of an army of unstoppable killer grasshoppers, who escape from their contained laboratory environment and begin to bring about the end of the world.  Caught in an epic struggle, Austin has to find a way to sort out his complicated feelings for his friends and survive the grasshopper crisis.

This novel is completely bizarre.  Realistic and science fiction elements are thrown together to create a very unique reading experience.  The story is narrated by Austin, who considers himself to be a historian of sorts.  He records his own history in a series of notebooks and speaks directly to the reader in a smart, witty voice as he does so.  While he conveys the main plot of the novel, he also explains every obscure connection between events and people, what is happening to other characters in the story concurrently, and the backstories of his ancestors.  This chaotic narration style is peppered with the raunchy and vulgar thoughts of a teenage boy, with swears and sexual references occurring on almost every page.  Somehow, all of these elements come together to tell a story that is comprehensible, original, and weird. 

Austin's sexual identity crisis was well written.  He is attracted to both his girlfriend and his best male friend, and has no idea which person he wants to be with.  He wants them both.  He doesn't think he is gay.  He doesn't think he is bisexual.  He just doesn't know.  I think this is a realistic approach to describe a teen struggling to define himself in the face of some conflicting feelings.  I also liked how his eventual decision is not to decide on a category for himself.  He finds peace with not knowing and simply living his life, taking things as they come. 

While I very much liked this novel overall, it definitely wasn't perfect.  The plot was slow and repetitive at times.  Austin's desire to show how events are connected and how history repeats itself leads to large sections of text that retread old information.  The secondary characters in the novel aren't well-developed, and Shann in particular is reduced from being a cool girl to a mopey cardboard cutout by the end of the novel.  The sheer amount of times I had to read the words "balls" and "horny" was ridiculous.  However, what Smith created in Grasshopper Jungle was so unlike anything I had read before that I was willing to forgive these annoyances.  It was nice to see something so creative and different.

So, despite a few problems, I still think Grasshopper Jungle is worth a read.  It's a coming of age story unlike any that I have ever encountered, and that counts for a lot with me.  Andrew Smith's compelling style created a surreal world that I'm glad I got a chance to explore.