Originally posted at The Wandering Fangirl.

On the outside, Mal is your typical angry teen, the boy people think will snap one day and go on a school shooting spree. On the inside, Mal is an angry, dejected, incredibly sad boy whose world is turned upside when his father leaves, and things are made even worse when he’s abducted by aliens.

Or is he? I chose to believe everything was true, but you could take it either way.

At 150 pages First Day on Earth is a short, quick read, but it packs a punch with what it does. Mal’s turmoil and angry view of the rest of humanity is easy to understand and sympathize with. It makes it easier to take the journey with him when he meets meets Hooper, a guy in his abduction support group, who may or may not be an alien stranded on Earth. Already feeling detached from his fellow human beings, Mal thinks the answer to all his problems will be to leave Earth with Hooper.

However, the short length of the book fails the narrative once you’re in the last fifty or so pages. Mal thinks and acts a certain way for the entire book, and his torn up emotions are an anchor as the book moves along. Then all of a sudden, without any visible change (except a girl actually talks to and befriends him), Mal changes his mind on something that drives the last half of the book and it all just ends. I enjoyed the book until the very end, but it’s definitely worth a read.