Review me Twice - Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout

I have to give Armentrout her due on the aliens thing.  You don't see a whole lot of alien books these days.  It's all about the vampires and zombies or vampire zombies and the few books not about those two things are about pirates.  So I do like that she says, "hey, remember when we liked aliens?"

And I like that it throws back to Superman.  They have awesome powers and come from a far away exploded planet and they're just trying to make it work here on Earth.  Awesome concept, awesome ideas, and to be honest, the execution wasn't even that terrible.  There was a huge focus on friendship.  Dee and Katy are good friends and a lot of the story focuses on them.  Katy has NON alien friends that have their own personalities separate from aliens (who... just all happen to be perfect, which is a little irksome, but ok.)  So score one for people having descriptions and personalities.

However, it is a little... Twilight-esque.  Super hot aliens, specifically a super hot alien GUY telling human girl who, for some reason, he can't seem to stay away from, that she has to stay away from him and his family because they're no good for her.  Sound a little familiar?

There are some twists though.  For one, even though Katy likes Daemon (lead sexy alien male) she has a backbone and is not falling all over him ever second.  Armentrout WRITES pretty decently.  I won't say well, but enough that I don't hate it.  And the book ended in a little bit of suspense.  Enough that I might, one day, pick up the second book.

I love that sometimes Cassy and I share a brain. This book is Twilight with aliens. For those of you who actually read/watched Twilight, remember how Edward is a complete jerk to begin with? (Presumably in the name of protecting the weak squishy human female from his big scary life.) That's the entire beginning of Obsidian. But Cassy's right... Katy holds her own (though she's kind of a jerk in return) so it's a little better. I just feel like the first couple chapters are a thesaurus exercise, finding as many ways to call him a jerk without swearing.

I made the mistake of leaving town without bringing the book with me, so I couldn't finish it, so I can't speak to a large part of the book, but after you muddle through the beginning, the pace picks up a little and it's much easier to read. I probably won't pick up the next book unless Cassy tells me we're reviewing it, but I have a solid idea of the kind of library patron I might want to recommend the series to.

Favorite Book With Aliens

I actually talked about this series pretty recently (and, looking at the post I talked about it in, I get the feeling this post might end up exactly the same way), but I'm still going to put it out there.  I really love this series.  And there are SO MANY ALIENS.  She dates an alien in the first book.  She gets adopted by an alien  race.  She heals aliens, she lives with them, she fights with them.  You almost forget that she is human, there are so many aliens in this series.

And they're all described so well.  Viehl's strength is probably in creating fascinating alien races that are individual, with individual looks and strengths, and weaknesses, and languages.  Part of what I love about this series is not necessarily the characters, but the world building that he does.  I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so for me to recommend a sci-fi series twice in one year probably means you should go read it.

I loved the My Teacher Is an Alien books when I was in middle school. And it wasn't just because they are fun, silly, books... I thought it was just the coolest thing in the world that my 6th grade math teacher's math teacher wrote them. (I also thought my 6th grade math teacher was really cool. Shout out to Mr. Tyminski!)

I don't remember a lot of the details of the books, but I remember loving them. Another teacher, or maybe the principal or something, she's an alien too. I think the teacher's house was the spaceship? And there was a little fuzzy squishy creature that I always pictured as something like a Tribble. I seem to remember a scene similar to that one in Lord of the Rings where Merry and Pippin are separated (except with middle school students, and space, instead of hobbits and Middle Earth).

Aliens in Literature

These days, it's all about the zombies and the vamps.  We a culture obsessed with disease and how it's going to, inevitably, bring us down.  And while that obsession makes sense, because it seems like the most realistic way that we're all going to die as a race, it means that some other ideas get neglected in literature.

Mainly the extraterrestrials.

Aliens, though, have been permeating our literature for years, probably without us even realizing that they've been doing it (which makes it all the creepier because then, potentially, couldn't they also be inching into our society without us ever realizing it?)

One of Alex's favorite books is about nothing but alien's.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a multitude of aliens in it.  In fact, our main character, Arthur Dent, has been best friends with an alien for years and not even known it.  Planet earth gets destroyed because they're making an interplanetary highway, and Earth is in the way, but none of us know about aliens, so we can't go anywhere to fight it.

A Wrinkle in Time is a book that most of us have read as kids, and it centers around three kids, who are brought to another planet by three aliens, to fight off an alien and save their father.  It's really about Meg's personal journey, but the entire book centers around alien worlds and beings and protecting the earth.

Probably one of the most influential books of all time involved aliens.  War of the Worlds was a book about an alien invasion.  In 1938, it was broadcast on air.  Due to the nature of the radio show, vocal
performances and no commercial interruptions, many tuned in after the program had already started.  It caused wide spread panic because the populace thought that we were actually being invaded by aliens.  There was rioting and police inquiries and people out on the streets in fear because of the show.  It wasn't until morning that the truth of the matter came out.

Aliens have been a huge part of our culture, and while they may not be as prevalent as some other trends right now, they have certainly made their impact on history.