Fun book. It wasn't what I expected and I couldn't put it down. ( )

This is a delightful book—one that manages to not only be engaging and funny, but also smart! How many young adult books are there that are really biting, clever satires on the colonisation of foreign cultures, race and ethnicity which aren't Books With a Moral? (Same goes for adult books, I suppose.) Set in 2013, it follows eleven-year-old Gratuity Tucci, her cat Pig and a renegade alien called J.Lo who set off across America in an attempt to save the world from the alien Boov, and from another, even scarier enemy. Along the way, there are encounters with New Age UFOlogists in Roswell, elderly Native-American men who pointedly defy stereotypes and point out white liberal hypocrisy, and a wryly amusing look at what it means to conquer and be conquered.

There are a few pacing issues, and I think editing it down a little bit would have made The True Meaning of Smekday a stronger book—I would have said that it's perhaps a little too long for its target age group, but I think length has become a guideline more than a rule after the Harry Potter books—but I'm willing to forgive a lot of pacing wonkiness for lines like "You are not a fan of ethnical jokes, ah? Look, is okay if I tells it, I am one sixteenth Habadoo—" ( )

This book is about an alien invasion on the world, but the story is set in the U.S. Another group of aliens tries to destroy the first alien invaders and also take over the world, but with more hostile intentions. The characters are very funny - you will laugh a lot! ( )

The funniest science fiction writing since Douglas Adams. I'm not just saying that. If you take the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, make it a children's book, and then add some cats, you would have the True Meaning of Smekday. ( )

Lively and for the most part, enjoyable. A little scary in places for younger kids, with a certain amount of eerie sci-fi violence, but nobody important gets permanently hurt or killed. Lovable alien characters, and a likeable human protagonist. A good amount of humor as well. I enjoyed the mini-comics used to illustrate the backstory in places.

My major quibble is that the plot winds around a bit and goes on for too long. It could have used some editing; by the end, I got sort of impatient and skimmed. ( )