Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never ...
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Feb 04, 2012
Lora
rated it: 
I'm so, so glad I decided to give King another try despite my mixed feelings over her Printz Honor, Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Everybody Sees the Ants is an astonishingly wonderful gift to young-adult literature, one that I feel extremely fortunate to have read.
Since the age of seven, Lucky Linderman has been having dreams in which he visits his grandfather in the prison camp where he's resided since being listed as MIA in the Vietnam War back in 1972. When his grandmother died, she More...
Since the age of seven, Lucky Linderman has been having dreams in which he visits his grandfather in the prison camp where he's resided since being listed as MIA in the Vietnam War back in 1972. When his grandmother died, she More...
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Jul 23, 2011
Crowinator
rated it:
Actual rating: Is it lame to say 4.5 stars?
So this review is long, inadequate, and perhaps a bit rambling and confusing. It doesn't really have plot spoilers (this is a quiet book where not a lot happens, action-wise), but it does have thematic spoilers, so read at your own peril. It's always harder to write about the books that really mean something to me, as opposed to the books I merely like a whole lot, and I can't do it without that. If you want to avoid even the thematic spoil More...
So this review is long, inadequate, and perhaps a bit rambling and confusing. It doesn't really have plot spoilers (this is a quiet book where not a lot happens, action-wise), but it does have thematic spoilers, so read at your own peril. It's always harder to write about the books that really mean something to me, as opposed to the books I merely like a whole lot, and I can't do it without that. If you want to avoid even the thematic spoil More...
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Dec 10, 2011
Isamlq
rated it: 
A.S. King has a knack for writing Quirky Characters. His mom, his dad, the bully, his grandfather, Uncle Dave and, Aunt Jodi and Lucky in particular: all are very different from what I am used to.
Squids and Turtles… I love how the boy thinks. How he’s put the people in his life in certain boxes and thinks of them that way and yet all at once he’s is completely right about what he thinks and funny, if veering a little toward the oversimplified. His parents: they not be perfect. It wa More...
Squids and Turtles… I love how the boy thinks. How he’s put the people in his life in certain boxes and thinks of them that way and yet all at once he’s is completely right about what he thinks and funny, if veering a little toward the oversimplified. His parents: they not be perfect. It wa More...
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Dec 29, 2011
Laura
rated it: 
This is a great book for any boy who has been bullied and who feels as though his parents (and, ok, most others) don't quite understand him. Lucky's life has been filled with trying to avoid Nader, the school bully, and dealing with his chef father's near disappearance from his life. Complicating all this is the fact that his grandfather was declared MIA during Vietnam, something his father and paternal grandmother never quite got over.
Most readers will have seen the MIA/POW flags an More...
Most readers will have seen the MIA/POW flags an More...
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(2 people liked it)
Oct 01, 2011
Cassi aka Snow White
rated it:
I always appreciate books that contain intelligent discussion about depression. So often that conversation is trite, trivial and about how you can fix your life if you just do a, b, and c. Then it's always the goth or the emo kid who's depressed, never the smart or pretty people. Depression doesn't happen to them!
Except that it can happen to anyone.
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King doesn't talk down to people struggling with depression or bullying. It takes More...
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Feb 17, 2012
Christina
rated it:
3.5 stars. Another YA book about bullying (just read Leverage by Joshua Cohen), though with some fantastical elements thrown in.
What I loved about this book was how flawed the adults were and how complicated the family dynamics felt. And the book was well-structured - the parallels between the characters would probably make it a good book for discussion. I also liked learning a bit more about POW/MIA families, which wasn't something I'd taken the time to familiarize myself with b More...
What I loved about this book was how flawed the adults were and how complicated the family dynamics felt. And the book was well-structured - the parallels between the characters would probably make it a good book for discussion. I also liked learning a bit more about POW/MIA families, which wasn't something I'd taken the time to familiarize myself with b More...
Feb 02, 2012
Kendra
rated it:
Ever since reading Please Ignore Vera Dietz, A S King has been one of my favorite authors. Her writing is clever and thought-provoking, humorous but serious. I was a little torn between giving this book a 4 and a 5, but ultimately I didn't love it quite as much as Vera, so I went with a 4.
This story is narrated by Lucky Linderman, a less-than-lucky teenage boy who is discovering that life is very hard. He's in trouble at school, he's the perpetual victim of bully Nader, his parents se More...
This story is narrated by Lucky Linderman, a less-than-lucky teenage boy who is discovering that life is very hard. He's in trouble at school, he's the perpetual victim of bully Nader, his parents se More...
Jan 24, 2012
Oscar
rated it:
Everybody Sees the Ants is about a 15 year old high schooler named Lucky, who is not all that lucky. It all starts with his grandfather who never came back from the war in Vietnam. This causes his father to keep a distance from him and his son, since he never really had a dad. His mother spends time at a pool to distract herself from her family issues. And he is constantly bullied by this guy named Nader and Lucky neverspeaks up, he always says he is ok. But one day Nader pushes too far and
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Jan 16, 2012
Charlou
rated it:
Layers, so many layers. It's about bullying, but that is way too simple. For a book about a boy, it has plenty to say about girls. Can you escape in your dreams when they have a reality? If you say every high school kid should read this book and it should be on reading list, will kids read it? Lucky, 15, has a mother who is a squid and a father who is a turtle. It seems the only one who will listen is his grandfather who didn't come home from the Vietnam War. Of course it's all a dream, but he
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 03, 2012
Marisa
rated it:
Really, really fantastic book which I imagine would be equally appealing to girls or boys. Raises some pretty serious questions, and will undoubtedly get kids interested in the Vietnam War draft, without being at all dry or preachy. I must have been very focused on reading, because I have not passages dog eared at all until the very end of the book. And some of thing I did dog ear are really terrible quotes taken out of context, even though they gave me goosebumps re-reading them. And one of
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Jan 01, 2012
ALPHAreader
rated it:
Lucky Linderman’s Granny Janice died when he was seven. But before she passed she tasked him with an impossible mission – to bring his granddad home. But Lucky’s granddad can’t come home – he was drafted in the Vietnam war and became one of the thousands of missing soldiers, going on the long list of POW/MIA and irrevocably ruining the Linderman family.
Granny Janice’s final breaths smelled like week-old oysters. She was pretty high on morphine and talking to herself. I didn’t know wh More...
Granny Janice’s final breaths smelled like week-old oysters. She was pretty high on morphine and talking to herself. I didn’t know wh More...
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(1 person liked it)
Dec 31, 2011
Christina
rated it:
I put this in my "odd" shelf because it's not really fantasy, but there's a magical realism aspect to the story that makes it a little quirky. I loved the character of Lucky, who's a depressed teen boy trying to survive severe bullying at school and at the neighborhood pool by one particular oaf of a classmate, while he's also dealing with dysfunctional parents: his mom avoids stressful situations or any kind of confrontation by swimming--alot. (Lucky calls her The Squid.) His father s
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Dec 29, 2011
Reading
rated it:
I wasn't sure what to think about "Everybody Sees the Ants" when I first started reading it. It was kind of a strange story and it took me a while to figure out what was happening. Maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention. By the time I finished the book, I thought it was a great story (if you can read around all the language) as well as a very important topic.
Lucky Linderman is a short, scrawny 15 year old sophomore in high school. He is an only child who is called More...
Lucky Linderman is a short, scrawny 15 year old sophomore in high school. He is an only child who is called More...
Dec 29, 2011
Meredith
rated it:
This is one of those times when I wish I could give a book a half star, or that goodreads would allow for a 10 star rating system. This was a 3.5 for me, and while I found myself very much sucked into the book, it was suffering something terrible from TMMP, or "Too Many Moving Parts." It was like a woman who walks out of the house sporting one too many accessories. Instead of pulling her outfit together, they become distracting and draw everyone's focus away from her pretty face. I
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Dec 02, 2011
Rosalia
rated it:
Lucky is having a rough time to say the least. Nader McMillan has treated Lucky as one of his personal punching bags since he was 7 years old. He's stuck seeing the school psychologist once a month b/c of a social studies project taken the wrong way and his parents are no help. They just want to pretend that nothing is happening. His grandfather went missing in Vietnam and his father has never recovered. In Lucky's dreams he visits his grandfather every night, trying to rescue him from the
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Nov 30, 2011
Lauren
rated it:
You really get inside Lucky's head, in his life with this amazing book. A.S. King has done it again with another fantastic novel. It sucked me in and I devoured it in 3 hours. The "dreams" that Lucky has about his grandfather have that symbolic, meaningful quality that lets you know things about Lucky that he's not quite getting about himself. He's straddling two worlds, one of them in the middle of a jungle where his grandfather was left after the Vietnam war where he's strong and has
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Nov 28, 2011
Sarah-Greenbeanteenqueen
rated it:
Last year, I picked A.S. King's Please Ignore Vera Dietz as my "dark horse" Printz candidate-it was a book that was so unique and wonderful and I hoped that it got the committee's attention. (It did). This year, A.S. King is back with another book that I'm calling my "dark horse" Pritnz candidate with Everybody Sees the Ants. I was finishing the book today on my lunch break at work, and working in a library, everyone always asks what you're reading. This book is a hard book t
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(2 people liked it)
Nov 25, 2011
Barbara
rated it:
After reading last year's Please Ignore Vera Dietz, I've been anxious to read this title. When a friend at the ALAN Conference offered to trade it to me for another book, I quickly agreed. I was not disappointed. In this brilliant novel, the author shows how being bullied can lead to depression and how having questions unanswered can lead to uncertainty and confusion. Fifteen-year-old Lucky Linderman is sleepwalking through life. Not only is he dealing with a distant father, an ineffective mothe
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Nov 11, 2011
K
rated it:
This book is uplifting in a real life way—without a dance number, an uprising, seventy-six bloody trombones, or any other gimmick. Painful and hopeful and well worth the read.
Lucky Linderman has been bullied from the time he was seven years old. He’s just one more from a pool of victims that Nader McMillan tortures. Despite doing everything he’s supposed to, nothing has changed and Lucky’s given up. In his world moms aren’t magic, dads are paralyzed with cluelessness, ‘friends’ are t More...
Lucky Linderman has been bullied from the time he was seven years old. He’s just one more from a pool of victims that Nader McMillan tortures. Despite doing everything he’s supposed to, nothing has changed and Lucky’s given up. In his world moms aren’t magic, dads are paralyzed with cluelessness, ‘friends’ are t More...
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Nov 06, 2011
Bookstorequeer
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book. It was so well structured (things continued throughout, like the turtle and the squid idea) and paced that it was wonderful. At times, maybe I wanted Lucky to just spill everything to whoever he was talking to but that wouldn't have made any sense for where he was as a character. If I just trusted the author to tell me, then it was going to be okay.
<spoiler>I love the ending, how we never really know how or why Lucky's dreams were as they were. It wa More...
<spoiler>I love the ending, how we never really know how or why Lucky's dreams were as they were. It wa More...
Oct 15, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
Brilliant book about a bullied boy who is looking to change his life. Lucky is 15 and small for his age. The town bully, Nader, brutally picks on him because 1. he knows he can get away with it and 2. no adult will do anything about it. However, when Lucky is physically assaulted at the pool by Nader, his mom finally reacts and whisks him to Arizona for a short stay with her brother and his wife. It's also an excuse to get away from Lucky's dad, a weak, ineffectual husband who cooks more than he
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Oct 08, 2011
Lucky Linderman is a character so many readers are going to relate to and he's one many people will be rooting for. This at times snarky character who mentally calls it as he sees it deals with a dysfunctional family, he's misunderstood and he's bullied in the worst way. I can't even put into words the emotions I felt while reading this book. A.S. King has done a great job with emotionally pulling me into her story. She made Lucky's situations believable, his bullying real and on more than one o
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Sep 29, 2011
Rachael
rated it:
Dysfunction can be defined in many ways, and some of these definitions might be accompanied with a picture of Lucky Linderman. At least, that’s the way Lucky sees it sometimes. He sees himself stuck in a life that he’d rather not have, with a barely present father who never got over his own father’s disappearance in the Vietnam War, a mother who swims laps in the pool to avoid confrontation, and half a lifetime’s worth of bullying from Nadar McMillan. Sometimes it seems that the only place that
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Sep 14, 2011
Diana
rated it:
Seriously, one of the best books of the year. It will knock your socks off. Lucky Linderman has been brutally bullied by Nadar McMillan ever since they were 7 years old and Nadar peed on Lucky's feet in a restaurant restroom then proceeded to have him kicked out by the manager. The Linderman family is haunted by Lucky's grandfather who went missing in the Vietnam War before ever seeing his son Victor. Vic, a chef, who Lucky sees as a turtle, spends every minute involved with cooking or watching
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Jul 24, 2011
Ken
rated it:
How would you deal with a bully, a mother (who he calls a squid) who escapes her own problems by doing laps in swimming pools, a father (who he considers a turtle)? Lucky Linderman communicates with his grandfather, who is a POW/MIA Vietnam War veteran. He does this when he is dreaming. He has been doing this since he was 7 years old and occasionally he brings back souveriers from these meetings. The real question here is who is he really helping, his grandfather or himself?
When he is assi More...
When he is assi More...
Jul 18, 2011
Dodie
rated it:
Lucky, who really isn't, has a lot to be worried about - he is constantly bullied, his parents are mentally and emotionally detached from him and each other, and he keeps having these strange dreams where he meets up with his missing POW grandfather in the jungles of Vietnam. When Lucky and his mom retreat to Arizona to stay with Uncle Dave and Aunt Jodi for a few weeks, he's initially relieved - no more run-ins with that jackass Nader at the pool, where his mother swims obsessively.
Ma More...
Ma More...
May 01, 2011
Reader
rated it:
Between high school bully Nader McMillian and his family's slow disintegration, Lucky Linderman finds comfort in his dreams - specifically the dreams when he is working to rescue his grandfather, who was missing in action at the end of the Vietnam War. Each dream ends with his failure, and each day he sees his family crumble a bit more. When his mother takes him to Arizona to escape the bullying, Lucky meets a hair model who is looking to rebel and finds out that the dreams may not be the escape
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Feb 20, 2012
Beth
rated it:
So many facets are integrated so seamlessly in Everybody Sees the Ants that it's difficult to pinpoint just one and assign it the credit for the book's success. It isn't just the writing or the characterization or the plot arcs or the subtlety - it's the way every element that comprises the book serves the book. Means something. Matters. There's nothing extraneous in this novel. That's not to say that the book skimps on detail: Everybody Sees the Ants, much like life, is rich with detail. And mu
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Sep 30, 2011
Christina (A Reader of Fictions)
rated it:
This is my first experience with A. S. King, whose books I have wanted to read ever since I read a glowing review of one of his books on Presenting Lenore. I can now see why he received such high praise. King does not shy away from confronting seriously tough truths. He captures just how harsh children can be and does not sugercoat anything.
Bullying: Nader McMillan is a classic bully, the whole school afraid to piss him off. The fact that he has it out for Lucky, for no reason so far a More...
Bullying: Nader McMillan is a classic bully, the whole school afraid to piss him off. The fact that he has it out for Lucky, for no reason so far a More...
Jan 21, 2012
Rebecca
rated it:
Very well written Young Adult novel. Lucky Linderman's voice is excellent. You really feel like you're in the head of a 14 year old kid living in a dysfunctional family and dealing with a violent bully at school.
The only thing that busts this down to 4 stars from 5 is that everyone is a little TOO dysfunctional. Mom spends all of her time swimming. Dad spends all his time cooking. Grandma Janice (when she was alive) spent all of her time looking for her MIA/POW husband in Vietnam. Luck More...
The only thing that busts this down to 4 stars from 5 is that everyone is a little TOO dysfunctional. Mom spends all of her time swimming. Dad spends all his time cooking. Grandma Janice (when she was alive) spent all of her time looking for her MIA/POW husband in Vietnam. Luck More...
