by Chris McCoy
Bennett has always loved Sophie from a distance, but he never really talked to her until the night her motorcycle broke down and they ended up walking together in the New Mexico desert. Minutes after he gathers the courage to ask her to the prom -- and she accepts -- Sophie is abducted by aliens.
Following the close encounter, Bennett does the logical thing: he goes for a burger at the local In-N-Out. But the restaurant has just sold all the food in the building to a psychedelic band bus, and in short order, Bennett is on board the bus with the Perfectly Reasonable, the one-billion sixteenth most popular band in the universe.
Will Sophie ever escape from the Ecological Center for the Preservation of Lesser Species?
Will the teens ever return to earth?
Will bandleader Skark Zelirium ever write a new song?
Will somebody please hand me a Babelfish?
This is the book that Douglas Adams would have written if he were writing for a teen audience. (And if he was an American. And if he had ever been sober sometimes.)
It's cute, funny, quirky, and strange. It's not nearly as funny as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but since nothing in the Universe is as funny as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it's not unkind to say so. There's the sweet romance between two kids who are dying to get out of Gordo, New Mexico, and what happens after.
Also, there's a ram in the closet. Just in case you wondered.
Action, cussing (mild), dancing, drinking, guys, high school, humor, kissing, longing, music, no sex, rock and roll, science fiction
The events may not have happened; still, the story is true. --R. Silvern
Aarene Storms, youth services librarian
Richmond Beach and Lake Forest Park Libraries, KCLS
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