Earth to Charlie by Justin Olson (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Earth to Charlie by Justin Olson
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-1952-0 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-1954-4 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10
Charlie Dickens is a bit of an introvert and outcast in the small town of Whitehall, Montana, where he focuses primarily on three things: walking his neighbor’s three-legged dog, visiting his dementia-plagued grandma in her nursing home, and awaiting his abduction by aliens. His mom promised UFOs would come for him right before she disappeared years ago, and Charlie, despite the ridicule of his peers and the frustration of his father, steadfastly believes it to be true, at least until new kid Seth comes to town, befriends him, and gently opens his mind. Olson pens a slow start where Charlie’s fraught, melodramatic narration fleshes out an uncomfortable portrait of a teenager in distress, but, in time, large pieces of Charlie’s universe seem to fall into place as the book reveals his family strains (his mentally ill mother left in the middle of the night, and his dad is drunkenly checked out). Additionally, Seth’s reveal that he has some not-quite-platonic feelings for Charlie forces Charlie to question his sexuality in ways his upbringing never really allowed. For both Charlie and readers, UFOs offer a clever metaphor for things both longed for and obscure, but as the novel concludes, optimism blends with realism in a hopeful ending.
