10th grader Annie Gomez is usually the best at everything but lately she seems to be losing control of herself. Is it really a sign that two alien races are battling for domination over her mind?
This book is for anyone who has ever been a teenager or is going to be. Or is.
Annie Gomez and her coterie of fellow misfits must figure out which of two alien races is threatening humanity and which wants to help save us.
There adventures take them into a fairy realm that co-exists with Earth but in a different dimension and to a far flung planet inhabited by rhino-like space travellers.
In the end it falls on Annie's shoulders to face a great evil and overcome it. But she can't.
Will humanity survive? Can there be love between teens of two different species?
Excerpt
When a 10th grade girl who has flunked every quiz and test for the entire semester aces her biology final with a perfect score, there is only one explanation. What bothered Dr. Tripledoor, the biology teacher, more than the score itself, though, was the answer that Annie Gomez had put down for the extra credit essay question: What in your opinion most makes biology relevant to our lives? Instead of the ever popular I love biology because it lets us eat and sleep or (giggle, giggle) Without biology there would be no reason for Saturday night dates, Annie had written:
The human race faces the very real and immediate danger of total extinction NOW.
She had also decorated each end of her sentence with a very neat but not biologically accurate picture of a flower, colored with pink highlighter.
The reason this answer caused Dr. Tripledoor undue anxiety was that he feared she was right. There was only one thing that would explain a 10th grade girl flunking every test and quiz and then achieving a perfect score and writing that essay. Alien intervention.
Dr. Tripledoor stroked his small, graying goatee and stared into space. He wasn't musing or contemplating or wondering. He was purposely staring into space because that, he knew, was where the danger, and just possibly the solution, lay. And, truth be told (though Dr. Tripledoor may not have liked it to be told) he was gripped by a cold, hopeless fear. Compared to the immensity of space, he suddenly felt infinitely tiny. Compared to space, he was, in fact, infinitely tiny , but being a biologist and not an astronomer, he had never considered the fact before. To make things worse, he suddenly realized that, as it was five o'clock on Friday, he was probably the only person left in the school building. A shiver ran up his spine. He jumped up and began collecting the papers he still had to grade, along with his lunch bag, walking stick, sunglasses, and a freeze-dried scorpion that he planned to add to his "terrarium of death" (his favorite hobby) over the weekend.
Before he left the room, he wrote a small note to himself and stuck it on the middle of his desk. "Monday. Warn Annie." Then, keeping his eyes down, he scurried (in a shuffling sort of way) out of the building, into his car, and away.
Professional Reviews
A fun, fast adventure for the young at heart
This book is about a 10th-grader named Annie Gomez and her coterie of ‘misfit’ friends. During summer vacation, she finds out that she may be a Chosen One, chosen to save the planet from destruction. The problem is that she’s torn between two alien races, and both of them claim that the others are the world-destroyers that she has to defeat.
As Annie and her friends shift between the two types of aliens, the book changes from a fantasy setting to a sci-fi setting. But there is a strong sense of humor and camaraderie that runs through both sections of the book. The sci-fi parts reminded me of Douglas Adams, especially when the aliens impart the secret of traveling faster than light. I also liked Annie’s friends, who all feel like real teenagers plunged into crazy circumstances. Here’s hoping they have more adventures for us to read!
A good read for those young
Just as in Death by Haggis, Cutts once again gleefully cuts loose from the limitations of single-genre writing and stirs together science fiction, fantasy and perhaps a bit of magic in this new YA novel. Earth, we are told, is threatened by one of two competing alien races: the Wahi—tiny, fairy-like and transdimensional—or the rhino-sized denizens of the plant P, where the rules are completely different and yet strangely familiar. Naturally Earth’s salvation falls to the savvy and pluck of a teenage schoolgirl, Annie Gomez.
Annie traverses time and space with her “coterie” of distinguished mates including at least one who is a bit more than we imagine. Mysteries and marvels abound, and one never knows what lies around the corner—or abides on the million-light-year stage. As with Haggis, Cutts mixes it all together with deft whimsy and waggish observations on the human condition. A good read for those young, young at heart, or in search of a truly outlandish yarn.
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