A Review of Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth

When I was in Sixth Grade, my bald loud Scottish father gave me a book called Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth he said his work mate had given to him. I gave it a go later that day when I found myself with nothing to do and I was delightfully surprised with the way it turned out. I liked it so much I read it 10 times by the end of the week.

The book is about a quiet boy name Prez who is being sent to go and live on a small farm with the loud and rambunctious Blythes. While he is there, a disguised alien shows up at their door and claims that earth will be destroyed if he can't find ten wondrous things that make earth worth living on. He recruits Prez and they travel across the world in search of these wondrous things. On their adventure their adventure, they fold paper so that it strings across the universe, fly a tool shed, give a little girl a lightsaber for her birthday which she uses to nearly kill all of her friends as well as destroy her home, and much more. 

The best part of this book is the jokes. There is something about a little girl nearly decapitating her friend with a space laser sword that really makes you laugh. However, the characters are also really well done and so is overall tone of the novel. The tone is pretty consistent but it can change when it needs to which I think some funny books really fail to do. If you have read any other books by Frank Cottrell Boyce and liked them, I would definitely recommend giving this book a try. And even if you have never heard of the man, I would still highly recommend this book to you. It has a bit of something for everyone and it is a short read so even if you strangely end up not liking it, you will have wasted little time. There isn't much to say about this book other than it is entertaining as can be. It doesn't let the fact that it doesn't have any underlying message or themes stop it from being fun and enjoyable. I give the book a 9.6/10. It is that darn good.