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HUNGRY by Alethea Eason

HUNGRY

by Alethea Eason

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-082554-6
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins

A superior alien species has exhausted its own food supply and is about to invade earth to feed on the human population. Sixth-grader Deborah is leading a clandestine alien life while posing as a normal tween, when her father orders her to eat her best friend, Willy, at the upcoming Halloween celebration. “Feeding defines us. It’s who we are as a species.” Eating for these creatures happens once a year on Halloween, when they literally hunt and eat humans in a “feeding frenzy.” This alien family is living on earth disguised as humans waiting for Grandmother, who happens to be quite the powerful alien monster and very chummy with the “Supreme High Council” in charge of the invasion. Eason puts the strange, sometimes far-fetched non-terrestrial cannibalistic behaviors in a familiar middle-school novel and suggests parallels with an earth population that has killed its own inhabitants through war, greed and power. Deborah’s horror is allayed when she learns of a resistance movement and realizes others in her circle of family and community are also former Home World residents willing to fight for an earthly peaceful existence. The mixing of fantasy with reality doesn’t quite gel and produces a weird, sometimes gruesome sci-fi adventure that may have some devouring the story ane others just nibbling. (Fiction. 10-12)