A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Winner of the 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction “Grasshopper Jungle is a rollicking tale that is simultaneously creepy and hilarious. It’s propulsive plot would be delightful enough on its own, but Smith’s ability to blend teenage drama into a bug invasion is a literary joy to behold… Smith may have intended this novel for young adults, but his technique reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s in “Slaughterhouse Five,” in the best sense.”  — New York Times Book Review   In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things. This is the truth. This is history. It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it. You know what I mean. Funny, intense, complex, and brave, Grasshopper Jungle brilliantly weaves together everything from testicle-dissolving genetically modified corn to the struggles of recession-era, small-town America in this groundbreaking coming-of-age stunner from the author of The Alex Crow  and Winger .    An Amazon Best Book of the Month, February 2014: Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungle defies easy description. To say that it’s a wild, over-the-top story of male adolescence, science gone wrong, the end of the world, and giant praying mantises sounds a little bit insane. And doesn’t begin to touch the warm and fuzzy bits (honesty, love, connection) that are a large part of what makes this book great. Narrator Austin Szerba is a unique historian of momentous things, including the nature of history itself, and his chronicle of family, how the end of the world began beside a dumpster in his small Iowa town, and what life is like when you’re sixteen and in love with two people, is something you won’t want to miss. -- Seira Wilson Simmering within Ealing, Iowa, is a deadly genetically engineered plague capable of unleashing unstoppable soldiers—six-foot-tall praying mantises with insatiable appetites for food and sex. No one knows it, of course, until Austin and his best friend Robby accidentally release it on the world. An ever-growing plague of giant, flesh-hungry insects is bad enough, but Austin is also up to his eyeballs in sexual confusion—is he in love with Robby or his girlfriend, Shann? Both of them make him horny, but most things do. In an admittedly futile attempt to capture the truth of his history, painfully honest Austin narrates the events of the apocalypse intermingled with a detailed account of the “connections that spiderweb through time and place,” leading from his great-great-great-grandfather Andrzej in Poland to Shann’s lucky discovery of an apocalypse-proof bunker in her new backyard. Smith (Winger, 2013) is up to his old tricks, delivering a gruesome sci-fi treat, a likable punk of a narrator, and a sucker punch ending that satisfyingly resolves everything and nothing in the same breath. Grades 9-12. --Sarah Hunter “ A literary joy to behold . . . . reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five , in the best sense.” — The New York Times Book Review "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   “[ Grasshopper Jungle ] reads more like an absurdist  Middlesex… and is all the better for it . A-” — Entertainment Weekly  “Nuanced, gross, funny and poignant, it's  wildly origina l.” — The San Francisco Chronicle   “If you appreciate kooky humor, sentences that bite, and a nuanced understanding of human beings’ complicated natures and inexplicable actions, then you, too, will love Smith’s bold, bizarre, and beautifu l novel.” — The Boston Globe   “The end of the world comes with neither a bang nor a whimper but with a dark chuckle and the ominous click-click of giant insect mandibles in this irreverent, strangely tender new novel by Andrew Smith. This but hints at the intricately structured, profound, profanity-laced narrative between these radioactive-green covers.” — The Washington Post   “Andrew Smith’s writing grabs you. He takes phrases and turns them into recurring motifs that punctuate the story, until by the end you start to expect them, maybe even mutter them to yourself. And the way that he takes all these seemingly disparate plot strands and weaves them together is masterful… Once you get lost in Grasshopper Jungle you won’t want to be found. ” —Geekdad.com     “ 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