Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth by Ned Rust (review)

There’s a lot going on in this novel: giant jackalopes, interplanetary travel, a worthy villain, and, of course, the titular Patrick Griffin himself, a kid who just wants some waffles but instead ends up being a key element in saving the world. Patrick finds himself on the planet Ith, unsure how he got there or how to get back to Earth, and given that Ith is a dystopian setting with constant surveillance and an enforced vegan diet, it’s no wonder he wants to be gone. In the meantime, an enormous jackalope, BunBun, is trying to help Earth avoid an apocalypse at the hands of Rex Abraham, a grunge-listening, turtleneck-wearing villain intent on decimating worlds and controlling them. There is plenty of comedy along the way, mostly focused around puns or interplanetary misunderstandings. Under the jokey exterior, though, there’s some deep stuff about the way we allow ourselves to be controlled by technology, so the book offers more than just laughs for the perceptive reader.