“Contact” by Joanna Homer was recommended to me by a friend, and I have to admit I was skeptical of it at first. The book involves a teenage girl in Britain discovering aliens living among humans on earth. At the time the book was recommended to me a lot of alien invasion books were really popular but not living up to the hype. “Contact”, however, isn’t about an invasion and even if it was I’d like it anyway.
Eliza is determined to turn her life around and graduate with high marks so university, and a better life for herself and her sister, will be a possibility. She doesn’t count on Jack, the new Australian exchange student, becoming a constant distraction and thorn in her side. Life will never be the same when Eliza discovers that Jack is from much farther away than Australia, and he isn’t the only alien with an interest in her.
Two alien races, the Andronians and Syonians, live on earth as visitors, blending in with the human population. However, a rogue Andronian terrorist decides the time has come to assert his people’s dominance and sets out to find the fabled Orb of Tealon, a piece of technology that puts world destroying power in the palm of one’s hand.
I love the way Joanna Homer weaves the ordinary life bits in with Eliza’s new life connected with the alien presence on Earth. It’s handled in a fashion that feels very realistic and is masterfully executed.
Along a similar vein, I really appreciated the way the romance was handled between Eliza and Jack. Yes, it’s yet another rehashing of the YA trope “she hates him despite being distracted by his hotness and then falls in love with him”. But “Contact” handles this trope better than any other YA title I’ve personally read. Their feelings develop in a very gradual and believable fashion, and for once I can actually buy these characters who hate each other so much falling for each other this hard without even once rolling my eyes.
In fact I felt the relationships between the cast were handled very well overall. Even though a few characters fell a bit flat for me, the connections between them kept my interest.
Although this isn’t a thriller or action book, there are some good fight scenes in it as well. The Syonians and Andronians both have energy bending powers that give them a number of abilities they can use in battle. The combat between Jack and the antagonist feels almost like a battle scene from a martial arts anime like “Dragonball” or “YuYuHakusho”. Power assisted physical attacks, energy blasts being thrown around. Great stuff.
I did have a few minor issues with the book, one being that *Spoiler Alert* it was really obvious they were going to get double crossed at the end and who was going to do it. This sort of thing doesn’t normally bother me, but I felt in this case it was just a little too obvious, to where the characters really should have figured it out instead of being totally blindsided by it. *End Spoiler Alert*
Another minor issue I had was the introduction of the “Grays” in the second half of the book. Andronians and Syonians are indistinguishable from humans, but the Grays are an entirely different alien race, more like the classic Roswell aliens. When the presence of Grays is confirmed, Eliza’s Syonian allies get really worried…sort of. They flop back and forth between apparent terror and calm nonchalance on the subject, which kind of leaves the reader unsure what to think.
That doesn’t bother me, though, so much as the lack of explanation for why the Grays are so worrisome. The Syonians beat around the bush and hint at things a lot, but never really come out and say what bad thing could potentially happen because there are Grays, so I wasn’t ever sure whether they were actually a threat or not. The Grays aren’t a huge factor in the story, but I still found this rather irksome.
Finally, one thing that I felt took too long to be explained was why the aliens had so much interest in Eliza in the first place. Eventually the reason for this was revealed, and it holds up fine, but I felt like it was pushed too far back in the book.
As I said these are minor issues, though, and overall I felt the book was quite entertaining. I’m looking forward to diving into the second one. I give “Contact” four out of five stars for “I really liked it”.
