The Humans

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Combine Douglas Adams’s irreverent take on life, the universe, and everything with a genuinely moving love story, and you have some idea of the humor, originality, and poignancy of Matt Haig’s latest novel. Granted, the plot is somewhat unrealistic and silly - it is after all about an alien who is put on Earth to complete a mission - but said alien’s observations on humans are spot on and very interesting as well as hilarious.

Isobel cared so much that she was able to sacrifice the other aspects of her career just so she could take care of her family while Andrew was out working. You will be convinced the author himself is from another world, sent here to give us some wisdom, but perhaps also fearful if we can handle it.

On one page the alien was a naive blank slate, the next he had some prior knowledge suddenly, the next he was using keys with no problem. He has been taught for his entire existence about the evil of humans--their violence, their greed and selfishness, their carelessness with their world and with each other, their foolish priorities, and their general unwillingness to consider complex or uncomfortable thoughts. The naïve protagonist, though very curious, was first and foremost disgusted by the way humans look, especially because of their protruding noses. There were some moments wherein I almost panicked because there were math equations in the book, and I am never good in math, unless we’re talking about how much money I would need to survive.

To supplement this lack of plot, Haig tries to explore the meaning of life through our bumbling old alien narrator, whose voice becomes instantly less charming as soon as he’s humanized. With his experiences at the forefront of his mind, this book provides what you need to hear if you are suffering/ have ever suffered with depression. This is a book that I think everyone – regardless of your preferred genres – should pick up and read. Haig handles the complexities of this and of all the challenges of the bizarre situation with heart, some wry humor, and with thoughtfulness. While science fiction isn’t my go-to genre, I found The Humans to be very accessible given its present-day Earth setting.I don’t want to tell you it is a book that features an alien in it, because you might not like books with aliens in it, and I don’t really. The Humans begins quite wonderfully with the arrival of an alien who can barely disguise his contempt towards humans and believes clothing is optional. He goes on about this, often and at some length, culminating in a letter of advice he bequeaths to the son – a 97-point list six and a half pages long. At first he is determined to eliminate anyone who had been told about the fateful mathematical advancement that is at the heart of his deadly mission.

For those that don’t know, a human is a real bipedal life form of midrange intelligence, living a largely deluded existence on a small waterlogged planet in a very lonely corner of the universe. For all its later outbreaks of Vonnadorian mawkishness, The Humans still deserves to live long and prosper. As the book progresses it becomes more poignant, Martin learns more about what it means to be human, thanks partly to a dog, peanut butter and Emily Dickinson.I definitely plan to read more from Haig but this didn't quite hit the mark for me, partially because I prefer to feel like i'm "one" with the narrator and see from their point of view, but since the narrator is a different species entirely, it was hard to truly get lost in the style. If you'd have handed me this book without telling me the author, I probably could have guessed it was from Matt Haig because it feels so distinctly Him.

The way this alien views humanity cracks me up because he doesn't understand anything about our people or our world, and seeing him experience humanity for the first time was so entertaining. The alien comes to love the puny, delicate, mortal human wife and son he has inherited by killing their husband and father and taking his place.

The Humans is a beautifully written insight into what it means to be a human and how pain, sorrow and fear are a necessary part of that. In Matt Haig's The Humans , an extraterrestrial arrives on Earth with a mission: to kill the man who has achieved a mathematical discovery considered beyond what is appropriate for humans and for the planet. I found the that the humour and wit of this book came down to the same inane memes that your aunt will share on Facebook: I hate Mondays humour, only my dog understands me humour, kids these days humour. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, and the wars they witness on the news, and is totally baffled by concepts such as love and family. Love is truth") above the level of the " Desiderata" poster or the sort of wry and twinkly conclusions about what it means to be human that Spock was often subjected to at the end of a Star Trek episode.