Book Review: We are the Ants

I picked up this book at a time in my life where I was very unhappy. I was drawn to it because the quote on the first page is one I have always liked: "two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." And because the first line was "life is bullshit" and that really spoke to me as it's something I've been feeling a lot. 

The whole first chapter I felt myself nodding along, the rituals we do every day, they're all just a distraction, the voice in your head that whispers tomorrow won't be better than today, the absurdity of the little things like bushing your teeth and all the small things we stress over every day again and again. "None of it matters. I'll die, you'll die, we'll all die, and the things we've done, the choices we've made, will amount to nothing." 
 

We are the Ants is actually a pretty depressing book. The book is told form the perspective of a teenage boy who recently lost his boyfriend to suicide. The narrator doesn't really hold back and it's full of self-depricating humor. As far a depression it really seemed to hit the nail on the head in that first chapter.  When you're feeling depressed it can feel as if nothing matters, least of all you, which echoes what the book says: "Your entire sense of self-worth is predicated upon your belief that you matter, that you matter to the universe, but you don't. because we are the ants." 

In the book Henry is given the choice, by aliens, to press a button and save the world, or to not press it and let the world end. Despite this sounding like a sci-fi book the aliens are really more of plot device and a physical way to show Henry's battle with depression. A much more key element in the story is Henry's new friendship and romantic interest in Diego. Despite really not really enjoying the romance element of the story I really liked the way this novel tried to grapple with the meaninglessness of life and I think anyone who has dealt with loss and depression can see a lot of themselves in Henry's struggle with finding a reason the world is worth saving. The aliens, and the button that saves the world, are all just a stand in for a deeper question, are our own lives worth saving, are they worth living, and are they worth anything if nothing matters. 

The ending feels honest to me. It doesn't attempt to solve the meaning of life but it instead offers some other things.

[SPOILERS]The last lines of the book ends with Henry still thinking life could end at any moment, one way or another we are all going to die. When everyone dies the universe will still carry on. A hundred billion years from now no one will exist who remembers us and time will forget we ever existed. "And it doesn't matter. We remember the past, live in the present and write the future. The universe may forget us, but our light will brighten the darkness for eons after we've departed this world. The universe may forget us, but it can't fort us until we're gone, and we're still here, our futures are still unwritten. We can choose to sit on our asses and wait for the end, or we can live right now. We can march to the edge of the void and scream in defiance. Yell out for all to hear that we DO matter. That we are still here, living our absurd lives, and nothing can take that away from us. [...] We may not get to choose how we die, but we can choose how we live. The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching."

Everything may not have a point but life still has to go on. Which in a sense, is absurd.