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. ( )

Hilarious! In this story of what happens when aliens fight over who's going to dominate over Planet Earth, one tween girl and one outcast alien somehow manage to save the world! Definitely worth checking out! Appropriate for middle school and beyond... ( )

A really fun read for ages 9 or so up. I'm 41 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Really funny dialog, clever use of graphic illustrations. An 11 and a half year old girl named Gratuity ("Tip") Tucci, an alien named J.Lo, and a cat named Pig save the world. ( )

This book is actually a very very long essay written by Middle School student Gratuity Tucci for a contest, the winning essay of which will be placed in a time capsule to be opened in 100 years - in 2113. In it, Gratuity (Tip to her friends) describes the invasion of the Boov and the subsequent relocation of all humans to Florida (and then to Arizona, as the Boov decide they want Florida for themselves). Tip's mother was taken by the aliens early on, and so 12-year-old Tip takes her cat and drives (yes, drives) off in search of her. Early on, she meets up with a stray handyman Boov, who reengineers her car to fly. Gradually, Tip and the Boov, who calls himself J.Lo, become uneasy friends and allies, as they avoid the Boov, meet all sorts of strange humans, and then find themselves dealing with an even more fearsome set of aliens, the Gorg. This is an extremely funny book - the dialogue, whether tongue-in-cheek or absolutely outrageous, is snappy and Tip and J.Lo are both loveable, if often irascible and just plain nuts. J.Lo speaks English with a distinctly Boovian and very ludicrous accent - when he first meets Tip and is bluffing her, he says, "Then...then...I will have onto shoot with my gun!" and when that doesn't work, he tries "NO GUN! So I will have to...have to...SHOOT FORTH THE LASERS FROM MY EYEBALLS!" Tip carries around an antique polaroid camera, and so the book is illustrated with drawings depicting the polaroids, messily taped into the book.First-rate, tip-top SF for all ages - Read This Book!! ( )

A very entertaining YA read with a lot more subtext than you find in most books intended for YAs. A couple of my boys who've read it thought that it was "hilarious," but as I didn't get the chance to discuss it with them before the end of the school year, I don't know how much of the social commentary they actually picked up. A read that is well worth the time. ( )

Gatuity "Tip" Tucci writes an essay for school about what happened when the aliens invaded, and the other aliens invaded.

A nice children's book. The narrator is an 11yr old girl and that seems to be the age group this aimed at. But there is a surprising amount of political satire involved that should keep the adults amused. ( )