I adored this book. We have a little insight into neorodivergency in our family and this book really hit home. It made me laugh and cry but mainly reflect that we don't all experience life in the same way. Should become a classic.

👽 Life Hacks For A Little Alien • Alice Franklin 👽
★★★★

Read if you enjoy:
👽 Contemporary fiction
👽 Second person POV
👽 Coming of age stories
👽 Reading about neurodivergence
👽 Linguistics
👽 Mysterious manuscripts

This is a story about a young girl who experiences constant barriers throughout her life. There’s miscommunication, a lack of social skills, and sometimes the inability to speak. She knows she’s different from those around her but cannot work out how. Suddenly, her interest is sparked when she discovers the Voynich Manuscript through a documentary and wonders if it was written by an alien. If it was, then perhaps she is one too.

This was so good. It was quick to read, clever in its narrative and sweet yet pensive in its plot. This book is written in second person, and readers never actually learn the main characters name. For me, these were calculated and fitting choices for the story the author wanted to tell. The author literally wants to put readers in Little Alien’s shoes. It’s a bold choice, sure, but given the propensity for many people with autism to take things literally, I think it’s an apt one. The barriers encountered throughout the book were so enraging to experience and really added to the emotional provocation of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed reading it, and I learnt a lot about the Voynich manuscript too!

A quick read but just not one for me. I started off with high hopes but the style and character development didn’t develop as I had hoped.

The Little Alien of the title is a child we watch grow up from toddler to teenager. From a young age, she has felt like she doesn't quite belong and she is frequently misunderstood and taken advantage of by those around her. She grows up bouncing between schools and home-schooling (not that this really happens) and spends much of her time with her distant and mentally unwell mother. Her father works as well as trying to hold everything together and providing his daughter with the only real love and attention she gets.

It is only when she learns about the Voynich Manuscript that things start to make sense and the 'Little Alien' spends all the time available learning everything she can about the Manuscript and linguistics. She meets several supportive adults over the years, who support her research.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the way it was told and the insight it gave us into the way that the girl experienced different situations. I also loved the repetition ("Time passes gloopily" at the start of each part, with examples of day-to-day life), the footnotes and the little book lists at the end of each chapter.

It takes a little while to get used to the narration; it feels a bit like a prologue where the reader is being spoken to directly about what is to come, only for the whole book but it is worth sticking with, even if you initially don't like this style. I loved it!

This was a very different read to what I was expecting and one of those books that creeps up on you and before you know it you’re hooked. The premise is so different that it’s hard to say too much about the story and to be honest I think I enjoyed it more not knowing what was to come. The characters are all great and mostly likeable and that’s down to the quality of the writing which is absolutely superb. All in all a wonderful story that I would highly recommend and I was really surprised to find this was a debut book so hopefully we will be able to read more from the author in the future, 3.5 stars
My thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books Riverrun for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Little Alien has always known she was different, particularly when she doesn't fit in at school. She often wonders if she really is from another planet. Could a six hundred-year-old manuscript that has never been translated give her the answers she's always looked for?

Life Hacks For A Little Alien by Alice Franklin is one of those quirky titles that caught my attention. Reading the synopsis only cemented my need to read this unconventional story.

We meet Little Alien as a toddler. From this early age, it's very obvious that she's different. Where Little Alien is convinced she must be from another planet, the reader quickly discerns that she's neurodivergent. We see Little Alien and her family struggle with unmet needs in mainstream education, leading to an unsuccessful attempt at homeschooling. I was filled with empathy as we followed Little Alien trying to cope with an education system that simply wasn't fit for purpose and reinforced her feelings of not belonging.

By chance, Little Alien sees a documentary about a manuscript that has never been translated although many people have tried. This sets her off on a quest to learn as much as possible about the origins of language and ciphers. Having promised so much at the start of the story, it was at this point that I felt the plot lost its way a little, leaving me feeling as if the quest to solve the riddle of the manuscript was padding for the greater issues at the beginning and end of the novel.

The final section of the story focuses on mental health and as with the section on education we see a commentary on how the current system fails the people in desperate need. I did feel that the conclusion where Little Alien found her place in society and similar people was a fitting one, reminding us that there is a place for every person if they are lucky enough to find it.

I liked the little details in this book and it was quirky and smirk worthy in many places. Very human book - observant on the minutiae.
But, on the whole, a little 'meh' and lacklustre...not sure i would have carried on reading if it wasn't a review copy.
Thank you to Netgalley and Riverrun for my ebook and print copy.

This was a so-so book for me.

I loved some aspects of it:
The use of a second person narrative is an unusual and bold choice, and this book carries it off superbly.
The descriptions of the world from Little Alien's perspective are wonderfully vivid and insightful.

However:
Descriptions of the truly Dickensian conditions and treatment (or rather, neglect) of the children in the school made it impossible for me to engage in the book and really 'believe' the story. If schools for neurodiverse children are really like this, it would be a national scandal.
The ending left a deflating feeling of 'oh, so none of this has actually happened yet, we're back at her birth again'.

Three stars for the concept and the writing style.

Little aliens will recognise themselves in this book, I know I did. Well written and engaging, this deserves success.
Thanks to Netgalley.

This was a really lovely character-driven story. I listened to the audiobook which was wonderfully narrated by Sally Phillips. She read with such compassion and understanding that it really elevated the story, in my opinion.
This book reminded me very much of The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything by Kara Gnodde, in that the main character is neurodivergent and struggles significantly with social interaction and has a very particular special interest. In the case of 'Little Alien' it is a fascination with linguistics and the Voynich Manuscript in particular. Although I felt little personal interest in the Voynich Manuscript, and could have perhaps had less detail about this, it was a reasonably good hook on which to hang 'Little Aliens' special interest.
I loved the epilogue which is thought was really emotive.

Overall an accomplished debut and I would definitely read more by this author.

'Life Hacks for a Little Alien' follows the main character who's neurodivergent and appears to be on the spectrum from childhood to young adult. Although I enjoyed it there were times I struggled as I 'didn't really get it', in hindsight that was maybe the point the author was trying to get across. Thank you to the author, netgalley and publisher for an early read.

Life Hacks For a Little Alien by Alice Franklin is a brilliantly fun and complex debut telling the story of a little girl's obsession with a mysterious manuscript and the effects this has on her childhood and perception of the world. It discusses themes of family, human behaviours and the human experience, friendship, and is full of insight as you're immersed into the head of someone who doesn't see the world quite the way the majority of others might.
I honestly had so much fun reading this! It was funny and peculiar, and the story being told in the second person made for such a unique and immersive reading experience; it made relating to our main character the "Little Alien" so easy.

**CONTAINS SPOILERS**

I do believe this is Alice's debut novel.

This sounded so whimsical and odd and magical and right up my street. The synopsis instantly made of me think of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which I loved.

The formatting was a bit off on my digital version which meant, where there were asterisks pointing you towards little extra bits at the bottom of the page, I had to hunt for them, but once I understood that it was fine. I don't usually like the addition of little bits at the bottom because it feels like an add-on - like, it's it's that important, put it in the main text. But I liked it in this story.

It wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it would be a fun, frivolous adventure about an alien, but it's not. It's about a girl who is on the neurodiversity spectrum - be it autism or something else. It's about what it's like to grow up feeling different, like an outsider. And as soon as I had that thought, it became really obvious. But it did make it quite intense when I was expecting a read that was going to be a bit easier than that.

My Mum used to teach at a school for children with disabilities and learning difficulties, and so I grew up around people with varying degrees of autism and perhaps that gave me a different outlook on this book than most people. I do believe Alice herself is autistic, and so she does a good job at describing what it can be like, because it's difficult to explain to someone else how you view things, because that's your normal.

I don't think I've ever read a book in the 2nd person, and I'm not sure I'm a fan. I prefer 3rd person, but do enjoy 1st. 2nd just feels a bit...I don't know, I couldn't gel with it at all.

It started well and instantly drew me up, but it dipped at about 35% through. It got very detailed about the history of language and whilst that interests me, it felt too drawn out in this situation and unfortunately I found it a bit tedious. But it did find it's way again by the end.

Overall, it's an interesting read, definitely not what I was expecting. It's not perfect and needs a bit of tidying up, but I can see what she was trying to do and it was an interesting way to explore neurodiversity.

For me this was really a book of two halves. I’m glad I persevered but the beginning was quite difficult - perhaps done on purpose to make us sympathetic to the nameless narrator’s plight.
Our narrator is like a ‘little alien’ - in that she is neurodivergent and doesn’t fit the mould her family, education system and society have prescribed for her. This is written in second person so we as readers put ourselves in her shoes, navigating the complex world around. We go from homeschool to school to homeschool and back to school again, never quite fitting in but picking up some ‘hacks’ for life along the way - the biggest is her interest in an obscure manuscript.
I found the second half much more pacy, with our ‘little alien’ venturing out of her comfort zone and experiencing different things. I thought the family dynamics were really interesting and wondered if more could be made of them to help those of us who are outside her world understand more of the complexity of mental health within her family unit.
The ending provides resolution of sorts but I was kind of hoping for something a bit more concrete.
Really interesting read but not one that grabbed me fully. Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a sweet and important story. The whole novel being written in second-person was a brilliant decision that perfectly aligns the reader with the protagonist. It highlights the difficulty of growing up neurodivergent and the challenges that are faced. You find yourself pulled into their lives as you are kept on the age of your seat as the story unfolds.

A very interesting voice and a nicely paced novel, but it didn't resonate as much with me as I thought it might. I liked the writing style and the characterisation but I wanted a bit more from the plot and interactions.

DNF

Upon reflection, this book was comped to a book I did not get along with so I should have been warned. A big issue for me was picking up the audiobook. I just did not like the narrator.

Firstly thank you to @netgalley and @quercusbooks for the arc.

I picked this book because it was not something I would normally read. I still have no idea if this is meant to be aimed at adults or younger readers. It tells the story of a young girl who doesn’t feel like she fits in from very young. Her view of the world makes no sense to her and she’s basically trying to work it all out.

I don’t like to leave negative reviews, however for me this simply wasn’t great. There was however a strong positive which was the humour. It definitely made me chuckle on a number of occasions throughout. The childish language used and wit were on point.

As a general thriller lover I guess books such as this simple do not hold my interest and this is reflected in the rating. This is possibly more down to my preferred genre of books rather than a reflection on the book itself.

The MC was likeable. Personally though it felt like it made little sense throughout.

Life Hacks for a Little Alien is such a lovely title that it immediately caught my attention. The book is written in the second person, which took me a little while to get used to, but I really enjoyed the story. It explores the theme of being different and understanding life from a unique perspective. I love how the narrator, the older version of the "little alien," kindly explains life to her younger self. While this book may not be for everyone, I believe it will find its own audience. Overall, it was a delightful read. Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I'll post my review closer to the publication date.

utter drivel - if anyone knows what this is about please send me a message

This does not deserve any stars it was utter rubbish