The Alex Crow, Andrew Smith
The Alex Crow, Andrew Smith
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.50

The Alex Crow

Author: Andrew Smith

Narrator: MacLeod Andrews

Unabridged: 8 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/10/2015


Synopsis

Once again blending multiple story strands that transcend time and place, Grasshopper Jungle author Andrew Smith tells the story of 15-year-old Ariel, a refugee from the Middle East who is the sole survivor of an attack on his small village. Now living with an adoptive family in Sunday, West Virginia, Ariel's story of his summer at a boys' camp for tech detox is juxtaposed against those of a schizophrenic bomber and the diaries of a failed arctic expedition from the late nineteenth century. Oh, and there’s also a depressed bionic reincarnated crow.

About The Author

Andrew Smith knew ever since his days as editor of his high school newspaper that he wanted to be a writer. His books include Grasshopper Jungle and Winger. Smith prefers the seclusion of his rural Southern California setting, where he lives with his family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Shaun on March 17, 2015

Christ. What a book. It's hard not to talk about The Alex Crow without thinking about the conversations that have been happening lately about whether or not Smith's books are sexist or if they do a disservice to women or if the female characters in his books are poorly written. When people were defe......more

Goodreads review by Braiden on May 01, 2015

Andrew Smith is an inspiration as a storyteller to me. _______ Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith was a standout novel in 2014, regardless of its young adult categorisation. With a film in development and Edgar Wright attached as director, it will surely become a cult classic in years to come. Now, i......more

Goodreads review by Rachel Louise on November 26, 2017

2nd reread: This book is freaking glorious, can’t wait to write on it. Reread: This book is absolutely magnificent and I think is now one of my favourites. Andrew Smith is an incredibly clever writer and is horrendously underrated inside the Young Adult genre. The motifs inside this novel were hard-h......more

Goodreads review by Jason on March 22, 2015

5 Stars Alex Crow by Andrew Smith is a fantastic coming of age story about teenage boys. Once again, Andrew Smith has shown me why he is one of my very favorite authors today. He writes about boys to men, for boys to men, kicking it just for you. Smith wrote my favorite novel of last year, 100 Sidew......more

Goodreads review by BookNightOwl on February 10, 2020

I enjoyed this book. The diverse group of characters where fun to read and learn about. When Ariel town is smoked out he lives because he fell asleep in a refrigerator. The story goes back and forth from him being in camp with his "foster" brother and his life before. There is also little stories th......more


Quotes

2015 New York Public Library Best Books for Teens
2015 Boston Globe Best Books, Young Adult
2015 Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best
2016 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults List



"Therein lies the brilliance of Andrew Smith. He somehow always finds a way to turn the reader inside out, by grounding the farcical or turning mad science and vomit into art.” —New York Times Book Review

"The weirdness shakes out ridiculously well in this often humorous and touching sci-fi tome." —USA Today

"Magnificently bizarre, irreverent and bitingly witty” —Kirkus, starred review
 
"Smith is a spiritual heir to Kurt Vonnegut” —Booklist, starred review
 
“Fans of Smith’s raunchy, profane, and provocative work will find this funny but morally serious tale deeply appealing.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A smartly cohesive exploration of survival and extinction, and the control humans have (or shouldn’t have) over such matters." —Horn Book, starred review

"Smith takes [readers] to a place where humanity is imbued with the potential to render people inhuman…and reminding us that being human, all too human, is far better than any conceivable alternative.” —BCCB Reviews, starred review
 
“Andrew Smith is unequivocally one of the reigning kings of YA.” —Bustle.com
 
“In a market oversaturated by trends . . .  [Smith’s] novels are fresh and exciting.” —VICE.com


Praise for Grasshopper Jungle:
 
“This raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling sci-fi novel defies description—it’s best to go into it with an open mind and allow yourself to be first drawn in, then blown away.” Rolling Stone

“A literary joy to behold. . . . reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, in the best sense.”
The New York Times Book Review
 
“A bizarrely fascinating premise that Smith pulls off with panache. . . . Like an absurdist MiddlesexA-” —Entertainment Weekly

“I found myself saying over and over again, ‘Where in the heck is he going with this?’ all the while turning the pages as fast as I could. Mostly I kept thinking, This was a brave book to write.” —Terry Brooks, author of the Shannara series


“Andrew Smith is the bravest storyteller I know. Grasshopper Jungle is the most intelligent and gripping book I’ve read in over a decade. It’s a masterpiece.” —A. S. King, Printz Honor–winning author of Ask the Passengers and Please Ignore Vera Dietz


Grasshopper Jungle plays like a classic rock album, a killing machine of a book built for the masses that also dives effortlessly into more challenging, deeper regions of emotion. Above all else, when it’s done you want to play it all over again. It’s sexy, gory, hilarious, and refreshingly amoral. I wish I’d had this book when I was fifteen.” —Jake Shears, Scissor Sisters

“This book is nothing short of a brilliant, hilarious thrill-ride that is instantly infectious. The deft hand by which Smith explores teenage love and sexuality . . . is truly breathtaking. In writing a history of the end of the world, Smith may have just made history himself.” —John Corey Whaley, Printz Award–winning author of Where Things Come Back 
 
“Original, weird, sexy, thought-provoking and guaranteed to stir controversy. One hell of a book.” —Michael Grant, New York Times bestselling author of the Gone series

Grasshopper Jungle, in many ways, is a book about how there might be a manual for defeating monsters that have invaded town, but there’s not going to be an easy manual for everything else that weighs on the mind.” —A.V. Club 

“You, too, will love Smith’s bold, bizarre, and beautiful novel.”—The Boston Globe 

“No author writing for teens today can match Andrew Smith’s mastery of the grotesque, the authentic experiences of teenage boys or the way one seamlessly becomes a metaphor for the other.” —BookPage, Top February Teen Pick

"A meanderingly funny, weirdly compelling and thoroughly brilliant chronicle of ‘the end of the world, and shit like that’...a mighty good book." —Kirkus, starred review

"Filled with gonzo black humor, Smith's outrageous tale makes serious points about scientific research done in the name of patriotism and profit, the intersections between the personal and the global, the weight of history on the present, and the often out-of-control sexuality of 16-year-old boys." —PW, starred review

"Original, honest, and extraordinary… pushes the boundaries of young adult literature." —School Library Journal, starred review