The Humans : a novel

There's good bits in here, but for me they didn't really come together as a whole. I feel like I've read this story or variations on it several times, and there's not really anything that happens in here that you wouldn't expect once the premise has been established. It's well-written, but the messages within it are very simplistic and feel like something you'd find on an inspirational poster. It also had points where it seemed that the author had the alien "discovering" music or poetry or whatever, and his tastes just happened to coincide with the author's. Why not have an alien who finds the secrets of the universe buried in Napalm Death or Bob The Builder rather than Debussy and the Beach Boys?

This was actually a hugely poignant story, reminding me in part of [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg] but with the seriousness he rarely held onto woven throughout. It's rather heartbreakingly sad, and yet it pulls at one with a sense of potential. Hard to quantify but certainly very much enjoyed.