Matt Haig writes beautiful stories about human kind and this is no exception. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Our hero, Professor Andrew Martin, is dead before the book even begins. As it turns out, though, he wasn’t a very nice man--as the alien imposter who now occupies his body discovers. Sent to Earth to destroy evidence that Andrew had solved a major mathematical problem, the alien soon finds himself learning more about the professor, his family, and “the humans” than he ever expected.
When he begins to fall for his own wife and son--who have no idea he’s not the real Andrew--the alien must choose between completing his mission and returning home or finding a new home right here on Earth
Matt Haig has a way of endearing humanity to us, of showing us all the good that there is in the world. I recently read ‘How to stop time’, another of Haig’s books, shortly to be turned into a film next year starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and I absolutely loved it.
I remember wanting to highlight handfuls of quotes as I read it, as the writing is so poignant and insightful. And if anything, 'The Humans' had even better quotable lines in it:
"Magazines are very popular, despite no human ever feeling better for having read them. Indeed their chief purpose is to generate a sense of inferiority in the reader that consequently leads them to needing to buy something, which they do, and then they feel even worse, and so need to buy another magazine to see what they can buy next. It is an eternal and unhappy spiral that goes by the name of capitalism and it is really quite popular"
or....
"She explained - Marriage was a 'loving union' which meant two people who loved each other and stayed together forever. But that seemed to suggest that love was quite a weak force and needed marriage to bolster it. Also ,the union could be broken with something called 'divorce', which meant that there was - as far as I could see - very little point to it, in logical terms"
I could literally quote this book all day. But I'll leave you to discover the beauty of his writing for yourself.
For those of you thinking - Alien protgaonist = science fiction, then just be aware that this is probably more in the genre of 'magic realism'. If you can't suspend disbelief for a while, this may not be the book for you. But Haig keeps this story light with his typical tongue in cheek humour, making you smile as he picks out human flaws that you know you succumb to.
Don't look into the technicalities of this book or you'll find yourself picking holes and the story isn't about that. It's fun, its irreverant, it's poignant, it's thought provoking - it doesn't take itself too seriously and it urges you not to either.
Warning - this book will leave you feeling optomistic about the human race, yep, even in 2017.