The Humans by Matt Haig
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal.
He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there.
If you have ever wondered what an alien from another planet would think about life on Earth and the human beings that inhabit it—I mean, who HASN’T wondered that at some point and time???—then THIS is the book for you.
And it TOTALLY was the book for me, yall.
This was our monthly book club pick…my amazing girl Josephine selected it and I was PUMPED when she did.
I loooove me some scifi, especially scifi written with some dry, sarcastic English humor.
Let me tell yall…it was friggin HILARIOUS to hear “Martin’s” descriptions of our species and how our society operates.
“This is a planet of things wrapped inside things..food inside wrappers, bodies inside clothes, contempt inside smiles..”
“A males testicles were the most attractive thing about him”
“At 42 years old, I felt in a state of conscious decay. In other words, I felt human.”
“Catholicism was a human religion that favored gold leaf, Latin and death.”
“Basically, the key rule is, if you want to appear sane on Earth you have to be in the right place, wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and only stepping on the right kind of grass”
“If getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.”
“It was, of course, another test. Everything in human life was a test. That was why they all looked so stressed out.”
This story is one that teaches that age old lesson of you never fully understand someone until you literally walk a mile in their shoes.
(or in this case, their skin)
I love how Martin shows us that there is so much ridiculousness and awfulness of being a human….but there is also so much beauty and wonder too.
It was a really lovely story of all the things that make life so horrible and so amazing.
Such a great analysis of our kind…of family…of relationships…of our made up hierarchies and rules.
If you can’t tell by the sentences I shared above, lemme tell yall: Matt Haig is a DAMN WONDER with words. Every single friggin’ PAGE was FILLED with priceless statements. So much humor and SO MUCH DANG WISDOM.
If I read it in print, I would have underlined and highlighted and dog-earred almost the entire book!
Just fantastic little literary GEMS that sparkle on the page.
The chapter Martin writes with a list of advice for humans was BEYOND GOLDEN and spot on…I feel like I should print the entire thing out and stick it on my fridge so I can read it and remember it every day:
“No one will understand you. It is not, ultimately, that important. What is important is that you understand you.
“The things you don’t need to live—books, art, cinema, wine, and so on—are the things you need to live.”
“You can’t find happiness looking for the meaning of life. Meaning is only the third most important thing. It comes after loving and being.”
“If you think something is ugly, look harder. Ugliness is just a failure of seeing.”
“You don’t have to be an academic. You don’t have to be anything. Don’t force it. Feel your way, and don’t stop feeling your way until something fits. Maybe nothing will. Maybe you are a road, not a destination. That is fine. Be a road. But make sure it’s one with something to look at out of the window.”
See what I mean, yall?
SPARKLING EFFING GEMS.
I enjoyed this book so incredibly much and I think most of yall will too.
Even if you’re not a typical “sci fi” person, I say give it a try anyways.
To me, this was just a “sci fi -esque” book…maybe “sci fi light”.
Sure it’s about an alien and all that jazz….but what it’s REALLY about is the heart of humanity.
Thanks for picking such a cool read, Josephine! Totes adored it and can’t wait to discuss with the other book club peeps this weekend.