Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Life Hacks for a Little Alien.

When I saw the title, I assumed it was about a main character who is an alien and looking to 'phone home.'

Rather, this is a story about a little alien, an unnamed main character who is on the spectrum and never quite feels like she belongs in her family and on this planet.

Little Alien, I can relate.

Told from the second person point of view, my least favorite of perspectives, we are offered a glimpse into this young person's life as she attempts to navigate a strange world where people speak a strange language and don't quite mean what they say.

I wished readers were given more insight into the family, who were obviously troubled and dealing with their own mental health issues.

When the Alien discovers the unusual Voynich manuscript, she becomes convinced it will explain the mysteries of the world, and herself.

I love the premise because who hasn't felt strange and odd in their own body and don't feel like they belong?

It's not easy reading a narrative using the second person which was very distracting.

I also wasn't a fan when the author delves into the complexities of language, a topic which is fascinating for the unnamed main character, but not to me.

I'm not sure of the ending, it's positive but it doesn't make sense.

I can sense a deep message about the narrative, I'm not sure what the point is?

That we're all aliens in some way and all we need is some support and encouragement. Yeah, I get that.

I think some readers might enjoy this, but it's not for everyone.

This a strange book, is the child autistic, a genius, an idiot savant
or an alien. You never really find out but the journey is interesting.

3.5
You'll step inside the mind of a young neurodivergent girl, as she navigates the ups and downs of living in a neurotypical world alongside both supportive and unsupportive adults.
This was a quick and unique read. Thank you, @netgalley and littlebrownandcompany
#LifeHacksforaLittleAlien #netgalley

"Life Hacks for a Little Alien" is an engaging book about a different sort of little girl, one we would describe as neurodivergent, but who has not yet had the help or validation to know there are other people like her in the world. She finds hope and purpose through a late-night TV special and a mysterious manuscript. Highly recommended.! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. Publish date is February 11th, 2025

There was so much about this I loved. “Little Alien,” our unnamed protagonist, is so mighty. She’s tough, resilient, observant, and incredibly passionate about the indecipherable (and possibly extraterrestrial) Voynich Manuscript. Little Alien forms a beautiful friendship with a kindred spirit and together they embark on the sweetest journey, discovering more about their mysterious manuscript - and how to exist in a world that was not created with their best interests in mind. I loved the writing style of Life Hacks for a Little Alien and found it to be incredibly compelling. Profound and a bit odd, in all the best ways.

This one had a lot of potential and didn't deliver. In the first 75% of the book, I loved its unique voice -the girl, or "alien" as referred to in the book, is on the spectrum, and one of her main struggles is language and speaking. The way the author captured her inner voice was great, and you could clearly understand her motivations but also see how they would confound the adults in her life. The footnotes and "further reading" after each chapter were very clever. Overall, it felt like the book was building towards something. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

I would have loved to have gotten more insight into our main character and her home life/growing up. Still, the book turned into an overanalytical piece on language and the manuscript that we never get an answer about. The ending was very abrupt. It was, however, a super quick read, and I would try something else from this author again. Overall, I'd give this 3.5 stars

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for this ARC!

Engaging, immersive, and original. A recommended purchase for collections where quirky women's fiction is popular.

This book was very quirky and refreshing. The narration style did get a little tedious for me after 40% but the quirky and witty writing and fresh perspective had me hooked from the beginning.

I enjoyed the way the author captured some of the inner dialogue of a child that seems to never be illustrated, the things we thought in response to adults but never questioned later and were to young to realize how novel our perceptions of the world were.

Overall, while the story was written well and the concept was lovely, it’s probably not a narrative style I would pick up again.

A second-person perspective describes the trials of surviving life on Earth when you feel like an alien.

The unnamed main character, who appears to be on the autism spectrum, is a girl who lives with her quirky parents in England. As she struggles to understand the world, she develops a special interest in the Voynich manuscript, and the reader can pick up on the parallels between the world trying to decode a puzzling codex and the girl trying to make sense of human behavior and societal norms.

This was a quick-paced read from a unique point of view. The ending felt abrupt to me but it was otherwise enjoyable!

It felt fast-paced and a unique novel.

I enjoyed how the story was told from a small child with endless curiosity about anything. It lead her on unique adventures with her best friend to find out more of what the manuscript is all about. However, it felt fustrations at certain points when the adults could not acknowledge her disability.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a lovely, endearing little book - it’s not so much driven by a plot as it is of fictionalized memoir of sorts. I really enjoyed the voice and vibe, it created a rather unique style of storytelling that felt natural and engaging. The title character of this book is implied to be a young neurodivergent girl, though we never learn her name or those specifics. I suspect the target audience for this book is rather narrow, although I do not have any close family members or friends who experience life in the same way as Little Alien, yet I was able to relate to and love her all the same.

Many times, I wanted to reach through the screen and give Little Alien a hug - she’s a sweet, curious girl who tries her very best to understand the big world around her. The narrative style of storytelling had me feeling all the feelings she felt, shame, joy, confusion. Most of all, I felt strongly her frustration with the oftentimes cruel adults in her life, and loving parents who are simply ill equipped to manage her issues in communicating her thoughts and emotions.

Overall, I really enjoyed following Little Alien through her various adventures and experiencing them through her thoughts. She’s a very likeable character, and I’m left to wonder how she’s gotten on in her adult life. If there were more to come, I’d definitely read it!

side note: I had never heard of the Voynich Manuscript and was delighted to learn that it’s a real thing! How cool!

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very enjoyable, albeit quirky read. Reminiscent of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, The Maid, and Interesting Facts About Space with the narrative qualities of Remarkably Bright Creatures, I found myself feeling deeply for “Little Alien”. Neurodivergence aside, life throws family challenges at her that any child would find confusing. I loved seeing the differences in how people react to differently minded people—which was realistic, disappointing, and uplifting all at once. Once again, I found as I read, that book people are the best people.

3.5 because the narrator took some getting used to.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

⭐ 5

From one Little Alien to another.

I was lucky enough to be accepted as an ARC reader for this book! When I first saw this title I felt an instant connection as I refer to myself as an alien and quite frequently a “Little Alien”. I was so excited when I got the email saying my request was accepted.

I found pieces of myself while reading like when the narrator kind of goes off on mini tangents, it felt very relatable. I also related when Little Alien responds without talking and the adults around them get frustrated with them for not verbalizing their response, I still get that to this day as a 23-year-old. I really like how the book illustrates the disconnect that can come with neurodivergence and and neurotypical’s lack of understanding and unwillingness to learn. I found myself equally enraged and amused at the audacity of others in this book.

There was one chapter that focused entirely on the manuscript that I didn’t feel was necessary but I was here for it nonetheless.

This book was very healing to my inner child, as well as my present self. I felt very understood and seen.

Thanks to Little Brown and Co and NetGalley for this ARC of 'Life Hacks for a Little Alien' by Alice Franklin.

This is a lovely, poignant, sad, funny, and enjoyable book.

'Little alien' (we never learn her name) lives with her mother and father in southeast England. Her mother - a loving and hopeful woman - suffers from depression and other mental illnesses and her father - a loving and caring man - is an actuary. Both parents love their daughter but her mother's mental illness means that she's not as attentive as maybe she could be and her father's attention is split between taking care of her, her mother, and his job.

Although it's not explicitly stated, all of the descriptions of little alien point in the direction of her being somewhere on the autism spectrum and we experience her trying to make her way through childhood through that lens. Her autism is not recognized in school and, surprisingly, doesn't appear to be recognized much at home until much later in the novel. I don't know whether it's a case of her parents not wanting to acknowledge it or being too distracted by life to notice. Having been wrongly identified as a 'slow learner' little alien becomes obsessed with words and language and, by extension, the Voynich Manuscript, which she comes to think of as related to her - as she sees it - literal alien-ness.

She has a best friend - Bobby - and together they get into a couple of notable adventures which have a significant bearing on little alien's life in her earlier childhood and teenage years (and beyond, we suspect).

I found the family dynamic between little alien and her parents and between her parents very real and authentic. As I said above it's also - by turns - sad, poignant, and funny. It's very believable. Her treatment and her mother's treatment by society and the people who are part of the machine - schools, healthcare, policing - all seem right on the ball. Although it seems to be set beginning maybe 15-20 years ago, the consistent lack of empathy we witness throughout just seems to echo that lack of empathy which has become so prevalent in the past decade.

I very much enjoyed this hearbreaking and heartwarming book - thank you to Alice Franklin and her creativity.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC which is coming Feb 2025. I really wasn’t sure what to expect with this debut book however I ended up really enjoying it!

Life Hacks for Little Alien is a story told from the perspective of a young girl who feels like she is not human but doesn’t know why other than she isn’t like everyone. She struggles to speak and interact with others and therefore has decided she must be an alien. This is a story told from the POV of someone who clearly struggles with a disability but doesn’t know it as that or what it is. Therefore the writing is written in a way that is also different as if the main character is sharing their story in the way they best think.

Written with a lot of love and humor this one was really enjoyable for me!

I liked this book but I don’t see it as having a lot of potential for many audiences. The narrative trope of the narrator really worked for me, and the writing about childhood from a child’s perspective really felt authentic. But it wasn’t super memorable overall, the plot wasn’t dynamic enough. But I absolutely appreciate the chance to have read the ARC.

3.5*

Life Hacks for a Little Alien was a surprisingly compelling read and I got the same feeling I did after reading this as I did after reading Remarkably Bright Creatures.

The story starts with the nameless protagonist (referred to as little alien) as a toddler, and the narrative takes you throughout her childhood as she struggles with feelings of isolation and alienness. While it is never explicitly stated, it is obvious that little alien is on the autism spectrum as she struggles with speaking, and stims by making noises and rocking back and forth when stressed.

The storytelling really allows you to feel the depth of frustration that little alien has since as the reader you can see all of her thoughts and feelings, but she is hampered by the inability to express them verbally. When rationalized by little alien, her actions make perfect sense to the reader, but her limited explanations fail to satisfy the people around her. I especially appreciated this since it really exemplified how being not just a child, but a child with autism, caused people to infantilize her due to this communication barrier. The number of times people said "use your words" in this book still enrages me, which I think is the point.

I did find that the story dragged a little bit in the middle, and a lot of the narrative gets taken up by one of little alien's special interests. I wish her relationships would have been a little bit further developed, especially with her parents and friend Bobby.

I'm also not a big fan of second person narration and footnotes, but I did appreciate the purpose of having both.

Overall a solid read and I would definitely read another book by this author.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher (Little, Brown and Company) for this ARC!

Have you successfully recovered from your childhood trauma? Are you an autistic adult that was an autistic child? Be prepared to feel every type of way when you read this book!

At first look, this book could be mistaken for one that doesn’t really go anywhere, as it doesn’t follow the typical story structure we are so used to. However, in this one humble reviewers opinion, that first look could not be further from the truth.

This book reveals in layers a nuanced and complex view of someone who feels different, “other”. Someone who can NOT understand what compels people to say what they say or do what they do or how to react in a way that was randomly decided to be the socially correct way. Someone whose family is trying to figure them out, who loves them, who has issues of their own to contend with. It’s fascinating, it’s moving, the footnotes and suggested reading at the end of every chapter are fantastic and usually hilarious. I did not expect to be as enamored with this book as I ended up being.

This one had a lot of potential and really just didn't deliver. Initially I was loving the book, I loved the unique voice it had - clearly the girl, or "alien" as referred to in the book, is on the spectrum and one of her main struggles is language and speaking. I also thought the footnotes and "further reading" after each chapter were quirky and cute and very Where'd-You-Go-Bernadette-esque. And that's about where my likes stopped. I would have loved to have gotten more of an insight into our main character and her home life/growing up, but the book completely turned into an over analytical piece on this manuscript that we really never get an answer about. Things just kind of fell off. It was, however, a super quick read and I would definitely try something else from this author again.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!