Book Review - The Humans by Matt Haig

Cambridge Professor Andrew Martin finally has done a great discovery in the field of Mathematics which can do some extraordinary wonders to humankind.

But...before he can share it with the world, some creatures from other planet kills him and sends one of their agent to destroy all the evidence of such discovery.That alien then takes the body of Andrew to take his place on earth and secretly find the evidences of this discovery and destroy it.

It's simple! right??

 Just take Professor's place and destroy all evidences and go back to his planet 'Vonnadorian'.No need to get involved with stupid and backwards 'humans' and their stupid emotions and irrational behaviours.

It really is not!

First, our 'Alien Andrew' wakes up naked on highway road instead of Professor's office and then get declared as 'mentally unstable' by human doctors.

Also as he gets more involved in Professor's life, he get to know more about human emotions and finds the true meaning human life and its relationships.

But will he able to accomplish his mission?? Will he able to stay 'pure' from all this humanly ways and do anything it will take him to do, even if it is highly immoral and wrong thing to do?

The last few lines of 'Goodreads summary' actually sums up the dilemma and struggles he faced along the way pretty well -

'Can a bit of Debussy and Emily Dickinson keep him from murder? Can the species which invented cheap white wine and peanut butter sandwiches be all that bad? And what is the warm feeling he gets when he looks into his wife's eyes?'

My Thoughts -

I was really pumped for this one.The starting preface of the book was funny and hilarious which actually also tells us what exactly is going to be the tone of the book, at least the first half of it.The first half showed us the Alien- Andrew's experience with the humans and everything related to it.He finally got to know the concept of 'clothes' and its importance on earth.That was quite hilarious to see! 😁😁

Second part of the book was more serious and based on the relationship between alien and the family.While it was nice and executed very well,it did not capture my attention that much and I was quite bored by the end. Also, I was expecting something more as the resolution but what actually came was quite underwhelming.There were also few topics that were not touched properly so it was little disappointing to see. But this book nicely touched the topic of 'true meaning of life' and what is it that makes ones life important and worthy. So it was heartwarming to see and the relationships of each characters by the end of the book really made my day.

Characters-

'Alien' Andrew- He was funny,hilarious but also little frustrating at some points. Reading him as he interacted with humans and learned everything from the scratch was fun.

Isobel - I liked her and can empathize the most with her character. Her struggles, pain, the monotonous marriage and lack of appreciation from her husband and son was somewhat is what most of the women faced in their life. So that was realistic.

Gulliver - He was your typical teenager and the grown distance between him and his parents was also realistic and relatable to many angsty teenagers out there, who somehow also lost the ability to appreciate the value of life.He did grow a lot by the end and that was nice to see.

I completely hated Maggie, she was a complete useless part of the book just to show some dispute at the end.

My absolute favourite was Newton, the Martin family pet dog and he was adorable !

Overall Rating - ☆☆☆☆ (out of 5 Stars)

"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"

                                                                                        -The Humans by Matt Haig