As a refugee on Earth, Aria gets a bit bored, stuck in her underground bunker 365 days of the year. So once a year, she and her friend and advisor Penny escape to spend time amongst the humans. This year, Penny decided to go to some boring Earth political party, which was probably the worst decision she'd ever made. Because Aria will meet the human of her dreams and accidentally blew up Earth. Sorry?

This was just a lot of silly fun. We've got a Aria the Alien Queen, Greg the political staffer who also happens to be an FBI agent, the Alien nerd Barry, Penny the best friend who makes questionable decisions, and of course the big bad guy Woods who is really responsible for the blowing up of Earth. And yes, this progresses pretty much exactly how you'd think it would, until the end. The whole Earth blowing up thing goes much differently than I thought it would, so it was a nice little twist at the end. But even if it had gone the way I thought it was going to, I still would've enjoyed it because it was just fun.

And Aria is absolutely wonderful. In the end, the book is mostly about how she has a ridiculous amount of responsibility, and she just kind of freezes when it comes to making any decisions. And I feel that in my soul. It's so easy to just stay the course instead of making those hard decisions that you know you need to. Greg's an idiot but in the kind of "aww that's cute" way.

Overall, I absolutely recommend this if you just need something to make you laugh. It's a short little read full of absurdities and alien tropes and a super adorable Alien Queen.


As always, thanks to NetGalley and Splinter Press for the eArc!

What a surprisingly fun and funny sci-fi romance! The title really grabbed me, but I stayed for the content of the book. Honestly, I was only expecting silliness, but I wasn't prepared for emotional intelligence. I loved this, and I loved the nature with which is tackles some higher-stakes sci-fi fare.

A great read, and I can especially recommend it when the ebook is as inexpensive as this one is. Still, I'm gonna ask around about my library acquiring a physical copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!!!

Queen Aria of the Booshaloo aliens found love and helped destroy Earth... in that order.

We follow a very distinctive pov in this novel, as our matter-of-fact fish—or rather <i>alien</i>—out of water attempts to explain where things went wrong. She and her people didn't mean to destroy the world and bring about the end of times, <i>honest</i>!! It all started and ended when Aria met Greg.

Greg is a typical young, white guy who's marginally charming, but to Aria he's the moon itself. Utterly enraptured by this guy, she makes a myriad of mistakes in the pursuit of young, forbidden love. Dude has peak "some guy" energy.

Aria's hatred of plants for destroying her own world was perhaps my favorite running gag. As a person with what feels like a million allergies, I too view them as the enemy! At times her naïvity is endearing, and others actively irritating, but never does she feel like anyone but herself... if that makes sense? She's quite young and had leadership forced upon her, so her attempts to avoid responsibility are not all that surprising.

The novel reads like a verbal personal account that's now been written down, with the occasional footnote for clarification. Fair warning, there are <i>a lot</i> of footnotes, like more than some of my uni textbooks possessed, in truth I started to skip some at the halfway point once we crossed number 150.

While there are definitely moments of humor—sometimes solely due to the footnotes themselves—I think this novel tried a bit too hard to be funny over focusing on a coherent plot. The ending felt like an extended bullet point list from a uni speech class, rather than a narrative account. I wasn't expecting Aria to suddenly change into a different character with new skills, but some level of involvement beyond recitation would have been nice...

This story is weird and doesn't take itself seriously, so die-hard sci-fi fans be aware. This is no sweeping space epic—moreso an accidentally homicidal sitcom—but it doesn't need to be. If that's the story you want, look elsewhere.

This was a very fun and light read that kind of had Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy vibes like the other reviewers said. The tone and the tempo made it perfect for reading on the beach with a nice drink.

The only problem that I had with it was reading it on kindle. There are many (and I mean many!) footnotes that would have been so fun to read in paperback but trying to read them all was a bit clunky on an e-reader. Since I am kind of obsessive about these things, I could not just skip them either (I think that would have made the story and the tone feel uncomplete anyways). Maybe having the notes in parantheses instead of footnote for the kindle edition might solve this problem.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC opportunity!

I grabbed this via NetGalley as an ARC because the title hooked me!

Aliens have invaded Earth! But wait, they’re refugees! They’ve been kept underground and secret for decades and only their queen ventures out once a year to learn about the humans and collect their “zest”. But this visit is different. During this visit Aria, the alien queen meets Greg, a human so adorable she extends her visit and stumbles upon a plot to bomb the earth. With Greg and his friends at the FBI helping her, she adorkably navigates the world trying to nail the perpetrator with her bodyguard, Penny glowering in the background. Double-crosses abound, red herrings ensue, and this fun little whodunnit packs enough surprises to keep the reader chugging along.

It is a funny book, too! And rarely, if ever, does a funny book actually deliver on that promise for me (unless you’re Christopher Moore). But this one made me laugh out loud once, and that is such a rarity that I have to give it props. It’s not constantly funny, but it does have some wonderfully comic moments. The best comedy hits when Aria tries to put her limited human knowledge into real life.

The book is written as a letter from Aria to the earth as an apology for destroying it. I don’t love the letter format. I think the story would be stronger in a regular format. The letter seems unnecessary and, for me, kind of makes the last chapter feel more like a recap than the story happening here and now, which isn’t as powerful.

The plotting is tight. I was momentarly fooled by a red herring, and didn’t guess the ending, which is hard to do with me as well. I’m pretty good at guessing and my guesses are usually right.

I am a lover of footnotes in fiction to enhance the humour and add a bit of extra flavour! Sadly, I thought they were a bit overdone in this book (256 is a lot!). They are also hard to navigate to in e-book form so I mostly skipped them. Perhaps if there were fewer I would’ve put in more effort to read them all.

I was a bit troubled when I saw that the author is a head editor at the press that published her book, but upon further investigation I realized part of the reason the press was founded was for 3 siblings to get their stories out into the world! A very unique founding idea, and in today’s publishing world, I can’t blame them for taking matters into their own hands.

Overall this was a quick, fun read. I’d recommend it to people who enjoy their sci-fi on the light side, their mystery with aliens, and their stories light-hearted. Right up my alley!

Fun book with an even more fun concept. Liked the tone of the story and will be recommending to all my fellow book readers.

In a Nutshell: An unusual novel straddling multiple genres: humour, romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction, and end-of-the-world. Slow-paced and a bit repetitive, but entertaining enough if you are looking for a light read with an unusual plotline.

Plot Preview:
Let me copy-paste the GR blurb here for once:
“It's the age-old story. Boy meets girl. Girl lies to boy about being human. Girl accidentally destroys planet. Girl apologizes super hard.”
This story is epistolary, written as the apology letter by the girl to all humans, especially Greg. The “girl” is an alien queen, and that’s what turns this *age-old story* into a humorous novelty.

Bookish Yays:
👽 Our narrator and the writer of this extended apology: the alien queen known as Aria. Unlike any queen you have ever met in fiction, be it human or animal or alien, Aria’s quirky nature and impulsiveness lead to many goof-ups, and this multi-hued character development makes this book an entertaining one.
👽 Many of the other characters are also atypically sketched. The queen’s aide, the local politician, the human who ends up as Aria’s confidant, the FBI agent – I won’t take any names so that you can discover who’s who when you read the book, but suffice it to say, none of them were portrayed the way these characters usually are. Their portrayal offers a novelty that might not necessarily be positive but was certainly refreshing.
👽 The “aliens’ – I loved how their depiction broke the mould of standard alien behaviour in fiction. Their tech was matched by the community spirit.
👽 The blurb makes the book sound like a romcom with some fantastical elements. The book is much more than that, covering some serious themes and a well-written coming-of-age arc for Aria. While I wouldn’t have minded an alien romcom for the sheer quirkiness of the idea, I liked the depth of this storyline even more.
👽 Goes without saying that the plot is one of the most unique stories I have read. It hops across multiple genres – romance, mystery, humour, alien sci-fi, end-of-the-world, and action – but manages to do justice to most. The retrospective epistolary style adds a further newness to this storyline.
👽 While I never like romance to make an appearance in non-romance genre books, the story keeps the romantic track exactly where it should be – on the backburner. Though it is Aria’s feelings that set off an unexpected chain of events, they are written in an almost comic manner, even when she’s lovelorn.
👽 The cover is adorable!

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🛸 Aria has a tendency of explaining many of her words/statements with the use of footnotes. Too many footnotes! There are 259 footnotes in the book, 25 of which appear within the first 5%. Footnotes can be fun additions to the plot when limited to a certain quantity, but this went a bit too far. Of course, many of the footnotes were hilarious. But some of the notes contain major foreshadowing, which I dislike. I don't mind footnotes in physical books, but in digital copies, they are more of an encumbrance. After a while, I began skipping the footnotes unless I was too curious about the highlighted word.
🛸 As the letter is written retrospectively as an apology to humans, we already know that the aliens somehow managed to explode the planet. The plot is mostly a build-up to how this happened. This meant that in some of the situations, we already knew the whats, but read on to figure out the hows. But the mystery is a good one and not that easy to figure out.
🛸 The humour in the book is funny and even sardonic, especially at the start. But after a point, some of it feels forced. Aria’s selective forgetfulness of [A]’s name was especially annoying as it felt too repetitive after a point.
🛸 There are a few convenient coincidences in terms of Aria’s meeting the right humans at the right time, especially through Greg who seems to know exactly the kind of people Aria needs. But let’s put this down to fictional leeway and alien luck.
🛸 The book starts off well, but in between, it feels repetitive and dragged. The ending salvages the story as we finally see what led to the catastrophe. The proceedings aren’t exactly as anticipated.

Bookish Nays:
👾 Minor issue: There are some inconsistencies in Aria’s communication. For instance, she redacts all human cuss words but retains the bad words from her own language. She doesn't know much about human first names and last names, but knows a surprisingly large number of male names beginning with the letter A.


All in all, this is a fairly entertaining debut, that, despite becoming lax in its tempo and plot development in between, kept me reading. The outlandish plot and the curious characters combine to create a novel that’s simultaneously fun as well as frightening. It didn’t grip me, but as a light entertainer, it passed muster.

Recommended to readers looking for an offbeat novel that is light and dark at once.


3.5 stars.

My thanks to Splinter Press for providing the DRC of “Sorry, Humans (Especially Greg)” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Hilarious alien-ends-the-world apology letter (not a spoiler).

The whole book is, as I say, an apology to humankind for the end of the world. Just that alone made me pick this up.

It has a small pinch of Douglas Adams in there, and a very witty alien lead in Aria, Queen of her people, who are quartered (or rather imprisoned) in Alaska, away from the knowledge of almost every human on the planet.

And this book is her 'sorry' to those humans, who she'll apparently be leaving homeless in a week's time. This is the narrative of how this occurred.

Great premise. And great characters - the queen (who tells half the story in footnote 'asides') who needs to escape every so often to see a bit of the world, her reluctant but loyal friend/servant/bodyguard, the human man she instantly falls in love with - the eponymous Greg. Who may know who Aria is.

This is fast-moving, very funny and even a small bit romantic (inter-species). I could visualise this on a screen with a narrator. I really want to see what these aliens look like!

Enjoyed the alien tech aspects, the misunderstandings and strange plot revolving around explosions and the interplay between queenly-but-crushing Aria, her gruff bestie/security Penny and the loveable Greg.

Great fun, refreshing and original.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the author for letting me read the ARC!

Rating 3/5 (rounded up from 2.5)

Perhaps one of my least favourite book tropes is when a smart, capable female MC (or in this case an alien MC) meets an attractive guy and all priorities fly out the window. Listen, I too, am a sucker for a pretty face, but I can't imagine that in any scenario I would put my feelings above the common good (especially if said feelings violate intergalactic laws but to each their own). As a further point, Aria putting her feelings and infatuation over what her close friend and advisor are telling her (ie do not trust this random human. You have no clue about their intentions etc) frustrated me to no end. I despise it when the MC brushes aside their friendship and guidance for whoever has caught their eye. And I think this is one of the reasons I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would.

I did, however, enjoy the numerous footnotes throughout this book! I thought it added a different dynamic and engaging way to read the book (though it sucked to read it digitally and have the page flip instead of opening the footnote though that's neither here nor there). It was also a pleasant surprise to see Aria grow and mature and understand her role as the Queen. I also think the antagonist was exceptionally well done. I think it's difficult to write an antagonist that you kind of agree with and want to see succeed in their mission, and I think Faralee did an excellent job of this.

Overall, this book is a nice change of pace, especially if you read high-fantasy books, but it was not my cup of tea.

Female-type alien meets boy, fireworks (or at least, mysterious massive explosions) ensue. A good time is had by all (except the many, many causalities). I enjoyed this! It's most reminiscent of a Hitchhiker's Guide book in the sheer zaniness of its extraterrestrial, light-sci-fi premise, but ultimately with a pretty different vibe (very cheerful and weirdly optimistic for a book about blowing up the world, kind of vivacious, just not at all British in tone). I started out not thinking much of the footnote asides but, as footnotes usually do, they won me over.

First, I want to give a huge thank you to Splinter Press publishing for providing me an ARC copy via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book was so much fun! The whole story is Aria writing a letter apologizing for blowing up earth. It was humorous and cute with some science fiction thrown in. I've never enjoyed a book about aliens as much as I did this one! I typically don't do romance, but the romance in this book was just so genuine and adorable. I loved the footnotes (I didn't read all of them, there were a lot), but the ones I did read were great! I especially loved Greg's flapjack recipe in the end as well. This book was so light hearted and the author did an amazing job creating a unique plot and atmosphere throughout. Overall a really great, quick, and super fun read!

I would like to thank NetGalley and Splinter Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Sorry Human's (Especially Greg), is a Sci-Fi/Romance novel about an alien queen who falls in love with a human and accidentally destroys life on Earth. The book is from the perspective of the alien queen, Aria, and is written as an apology/explanation of how the destruction came to be. I thought the science/technology/culture of the aliens was cool. Also, the book was funny.

I did feel that Aria was too trusting of Greg, I was suspicious of why he seemed so interested in her. <spoiler>I also was pretty annoyed that she listened to him instead of just using alien tech to immediately break Penny out of jail</spoiler>

Throughout the book, there are 257 footnotes. The footnotes provide a lot of information (and most of them made me laugh), so I do not recommend skipping them. However, there are enough of them that they get to be distracting.

Although a friend of mine introduced me to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie over a decade ago already, I only started reading the books a couple of months ago. I was very positively surprised and really enjoyed myself. So, when I scrolled through Netgalley and stumbled upon this book I immediately got curious. So, I requested a copy and I was very happy when I was notified that the author had approved my request.

This book is a really fast read. I flew through it. But, I have to admit that I did not read the footnotes. Since I was reading digitally, reading the footnotes meant constantly interrupting my reading to go to the note and to then go back to the story. This is probably easier in paperbacks, where the notes could hopefully be added on the same page. I do think the footnotes, and there are really a lot of them, are part of the fun, but the few I read afterwards were not adding much, so I didn't read them all.

I mostly didn't read them because I already felt while reading this book that the book was trying to be funny a little too hard. I love laughing out loud while reading. I just don't laugh out loud when the humor feels forced. The most hilarious situations are when people, both the characters and the author, are not really trying their very best to be funny. They just are. However, I'm pretty sure some people will love this and will laugh out loud throughout the entire book.

At least, I hope so, because it's the main selling point of the book. There's also a plot and I eventually liked how everything came together, but it was not as exciting as I had hoped it would be, which is mostly because the entire book takes place on earth and we're not seeing much of all the other planets clearly existing in this universe. But, the author now created an entire universe and despite the fact that this was not my book, I hope they allows themselves to play around in it!

Read from August 21st, 204 to August 30th, 2024. Written on August 30th, 2024.

NEW BOOK RELEASE!

~4.5~

All I can think about doing is clapping and congratulating the author on this incredible journey she created. From thingamabobs to flapjacks, spies and love, this book was a perfect mix of aliens and humans narrated by someone who can't even remember a name of someone she saw multiple times in about 10 days. Was it Absalom or Andrew? No clue.

This book will make you laugh out loud, gasp with revelations, and laugh even more because I swear this was, at times, incredibly hilarious. The destruction of Earth told by the alien who caused it, she is accompanied by her weirdly violent friend and advisor and the human who makes great flapjacks (can't wait to try his recipe) and may also be a great kisser.

Now, was it a bit slow at times? Yes, it was. But it made up every time. The story speed fluctuated sometimes, which did make it a little bit hard to carry through, but it was all worth it in the end. And the end? So funny and satisfying, could not ask for better. Also, the cover is amazing, kudos to the artist behind it!

Honestly, I am so so happy I got the chance to read this book. I hope you like it as much as I did. Thank you.

(Free ARC from NetGalley and Splinter Press that I chose to review after reading)

4.25⭐
-
An apology letter from an alien, who may or may not have destroyed our planet. On the plus side, she also may or may not have fallen in love with a human.

I had a lot of fun reading this book! I honestly went into this book for the vibes, and it delivered. The comparisons/references between the two planets/people/cultures were entertaining; I was laughing out loud so much. Those footnotes? *chef's kiss* something about it scratches something in my brain + they were hilarious!

This book is honestly just a fun time - perfect for a "palate cleanser" between books or just for a good laugh.

*PS. If you're ever looking for baby boy names starting with "A", this book is surprisingly perfect for you!

**PPS. There is also a delicious pancake recipe in this book, crucial to the storyline obviously.

Thank you Splinter Press & NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3.5 rounded down.

While I did enjoy the story, it just started to drag a bit. It started out fun, hearing from the Queen of an alien race (well, alien to us) about how she accidently blew up our planet. And the end notes were informative and funny most of the time. Then in the middle though it started to drag on, and felt repetitive at times. The ending picked back up, not as good as the start, but still enjoyable.

I do wish the endnotes were actually footnotes though! On the Kindle, it was tedious to keep jumping back and forth between them and where I was at in the book. In the middle I ended up just skipping a lot of them, because they too became repetitive in nature, or didn't actually share any useful information with us.

I'd recommend the book if you're looking for a fairly quick, quirky read.

Sorry Humans, (Especially Greg)
By Faralee Pozo

Stars: 4
Synopsis: Who knew that the potential destruction of planet Earth could be quite so comedic--and romantic? I was hooked from page one. Dry/sarcastic humor is my love language, so this book absolutely delivers in the fun department.
Format: E-Book
Review: There wasn’t a moment during reading this book that I wasn’t thoroughly entertained. This read was so fun, and I loved tying all of this to a love story. Oddly delightful.
Pros: This book included miscommunication, one of my favorite micro-tropes. But not just any old miscommunication…language barrier miscommunication. The one where the MCs speak two different languages, and the gaps in understanding, context, and culture set the stage for hilarity. It's just the BEST.
Favorites Moments: This story was written in the form of an apology letter, and the footnotes were especially delightful.
Recommend (Yes/No/Maybe): Yes, if you love an absurd sci-fi fantasy read, aliens, and love to laugh, read this immediately.
Thank you, NetGalley and Splinter Publishing, for allowing me to review the title.

I received this DRC from NetGalley.

The story was fine, but I think the author tried way too hard at injecting snark into the whole thing, to the point of adding like 250 or so endnotes. I already get annoyed with the use of footnotes/endnotes and how they disrupt the flow of a story, but to use that many in a book that isn't even that long is ridiculous. There are more notes than pages of story. Most of the notes were also just completely unnecessary, and were just used to try to add some humor without having to add it seamlessly into the narrative. And I guess some were also meant to add a misdirect? Like one early on plainly says a character is dead at the end, when they aren't, which doesn't even make sense to say, only to take it back later. Why bother?

All that aside, the plot is interesting enough, and there are a few twists thrown in to keep it moving. I'm skeptical about relationships based on humor derived from cultural misunderstandings and/or trauma bonding, but it's fine for a short, nonserious story.

Really, I probably would've rounded up my score if it hasn't been for the constant annoyance of having to go back and forth to read so, so many notes that didn't do enough to justify their existence.

What a cute, comical, adventurous mystery this book turned out to be. We meet Aria who is a 'decent' alien queen to her people. However, when one of her subjects causes danger to the humans she must work together with the human population (especially her crush Greg) in order to save the planet and human kind.

This is one of the funnier titles I’ve ever seen and while the book was also intermittently funny, it did overplay its hands in a lot of places.