I have had to give myself a bit of time to think about this review before sitting down to write it.

For the majority of the book I had this down as a nailed on 5 star, I was enjoying it and was super invested in how it would turn out. Sidebar: one of my pet peeves, especially as a Kindle reader, is books that have WAY too much content after the story has ended. There I was, loving the book and seeing the little indicator at the bottom telling me I am at 91%. Great, I thought, there is loads more story to go to find out how everything pans out.

And then the book ended. And I mean it ENDED. It was so abrupt that I had to go back a couple of pages to see if I’d accidentally doubled tapped and missed a section. I even read the acknowledgments thinking they were part of the story, which of course they were not.

I was angry and frustrated. My immediate thought was to give the book a 3 star review out of rage. But I have taken time to consider this and I have changed my mind.

So, the book. It’s about an alien who comes to Earth and inhabits the body of a brilliant mathematician who has just solved a maths problem that the aliens have decided humans should solve just yet. The replacement has a mission to ensure that all knowledge of the discovery is deleted and anyone who holds the knowledge is killed.

Yet over the course of his mission, the alien discovers more about the human condition, and the lives of his family, that change him and alter his perception of our species.

I really enjoyed the book. It was so nice to see our flaws and strengths reflected back from a different perspective. And with a bit of time to think, the ending was not so much ‘bad’ as it was ‘abrupt’ and completely unexpected (given I thought there was 9% of the book still to go!). So I am giving this 5 stars and I am recommending that you read it!

And sorry about the earlier rant, but if authors could stop adding samples of their next book to the current one I am reading that would be appreciated!

The Humans