Jamie heard a review of the audio book on NPR, and sounded excited about it, so I used an audible credit and downloaded it. Perhaps it was the anticipation that ruined it for me, but I'd like to think that there were some flaws with the book.
I think the story would be fun for the kids, but it contains a huge literary annoyance; the use of euphemistic swear words and in this case, apologies for mild swear words. Trust me, I'm okay with a lot of things being in stories, if they are central to the plot of the story moving along, but this was just ridiculous. They didn't need to be there. They didn't add to the story or to anyone's characters. My issue is not a prudish one, its about use of words and language to convey meaning. Swearing, like any other literary device should be thought through before throwing it around in a story in a willy nilly fashion.
The accents on the aliens were weird. I know, you only have so much to go on when creating a very foreign accent, but I found the VERY hispanic accent on the main alien character annoying.
It took them FOREVER to figure out how to defeat the aliens, it was pretty obvious and hinted at over and over again. If I were in the middle of it, it probably would have taken me longer to figure it out as well, but that plot could have been moved along, much, much faster.
The jabs at our national history were a little over the top. Some were funny one liners, but they really didn't fit in the story. Yes, they were relevant to the story, but more like Rex was trying to add built in cliffs notes to the story. You can write a satire without handing the satire over to the reader on a silver platter.
In the end, it was a fun non-ceribral listen, but could have benefited from a good editing session and a little more subtlety in the satire.
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