Review: Alien Love Story - A.K. Dawson

Alien Love Story by A.K. Dawson

My Rating : {★★★★☆} 

I received a free copy of this book from the author.

I'm finding this such a tough book to rate and review. It's not really something that I would normally dive into, and yet it reminded me so much of an author that I used to read as a tween while growing up in Australia. Does anyone know Paul Jennings? He wrote short stories and these were later adapted into a TV series called Around the Twist.

These short stories were often completely shocking and contained grief and tragedy and yet these things were delivered in such a stoic and matter-of-fact way that it didn't impact the reader too harshly (perfect for a young tween). Looking back on them now as an adult and especially as a mother, I find them far more outrageous than I did as a child; I now have a much greater capacity to empathise and to worry about consequences and repercussions and this, I'm afraid, changes my entire point of view on the stories. What was once quirky and funny as a kid is now over-the-top and sometimes crude as an adult.

Now this book doesn't have quite the shock value as a Paul Jennings short story but it does deal with some pretty tough human experiences like loss, grief, betrayal and coming-of-age. These things are all handled with a steady dose of dry humour that, while this would make it easier to read for a younger reader, made me feel as though sometimes these things were brushed off too quickly and easily.

Added to this mix is the science fiction of aliens, spaceships, alien abductions and experiments. Obviously this is a work of fiction but there are some actions and reactions that didn't seem authentic in the situation, but the plot devices worked well and as a whole the storyline is interesting and fast paced and the characters are fun and fantastical. There is a bit of non graphic sexual content so I'd say this one is PG-13.

I'm sure this book is aimed at a younger audience, and I think that they may actually get a lot of the great entertainment value from this book without any of the drawbacks that I felt as an adult so for this reason I'm changing my original rating of 3 stars up to 4 stars.

Overall this is an entertaining and fast read and I would recommend it for middlegrade to YA readers.

View all my reviews