Antuna’s Story is a fun, sci-fi adventure for young adults who love creepy crawly critters. It takes a serious yet entertaining approach to unexpected environmental events and the social change that can occur as a result.
The writing is detailed and offers some interesting scientific insight into the real behaviours of the insect world. Sometimes, it felt like there were too many made-up words and names to remember but readers will get used to it.
In all, it’s an engaging way to prepare young folks for adult life using a safe story land. ( )

On the surface, this is a sci-fi tale about Earth insects and spiders who have found themselves transported somehow to a far-off planet where they must figure out how to survive. But there’s so much more in this book.

It is an engaging and entertaining story. It’s wonderfully imaginative and goes into detail about how its insect and spider characters communicate and might view their world. The inclusion of the insect emotions/non-verbal speech (and a dictionary at the back to decipher them) was a fantastic touch. And often, characters’ thoughts accompany their “vocalized” communication, adding depth to what they’re saying. Rich descriptions help set the time and place.

A multitude of mini science lessons – about insects, worms, and spiders, and even a bit about plants and chemistry – contributed to the wonderful story. I appreciated the care taken regarding including the types of plants and creatures that would have been around at that point in the Cretaceous period.

Alongside the entertainment and the science, the story addresses some important and timely messages. It’s a cautionary tale about obsession and war-mongering; discrimination, deceptive “news”, and blindly following someone in order to belong to the group; and how societies can go through troubles that are of their own making. There are also uplifting messages of friendship and cooperation, growth and caring.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable, captivating read, a great story to sink into, with some new things to learn and important messages to ponder.

(Read June 2022) ( )

I enjoyed this story. It was well-written and flowed well. The format is attention-grabbing: it is presented as a podcast in which an author shares the history he wrote. The reader then learns of the history these intelligent insects who were the only ones to survive a strange interplanetary event. I'm intrigued; I want to know when they become cyborgs, which means I need to read the next books in the series. There were some things I personally found clunky. For example, time is changed into units such as "hexutes" instead of "minutes." While this is an intentional choice that was explained by the author, I found it threw me off whenever it appeared in the text. Small things like that keep me from giving a perfect rating, but it was an enjoyable read and I would recommend. ( )

I loved this book! A fresh approach to Animal Farm with an insect twist! Earth insects are transported through a wormhole to a different planet. They survive, thrive and fight for territory in this allegorical novel. Antuna is a strong female ant who helps to bring the different insect species together to survive on the ' island from home'. But even Antuna can't stop the war from destroying the friends she's made and the progress of the colony. Can't wait for book two! ( )

ANTUNA’S STORY is a terrific young adult sci fi/fantasy tale about insects who are teleported through space via a wormhole to an alien planet and their experiences on their new planet. The writing is fun and witty, with podcasts, clever witticisms, and fun dialogue I enjoyed. Antuna, or “first ant” is a main character, but I would really call this an ensemble cast, with bees, spiders, roaches, worms and more playing a role. I enjoyed the author’s clever naming… Spifry the spider, Beebee and Beegan the bees, Dinomite the termite. Roachester was probably my favorite. My mother probably wouldn’t even smoosh a roach named Roachester! At first in this cleverly constructed novel, all the different species of insects work harmoniously. A spider saves an ant from death. Ants help harvest fungi to save the roaches. There is insect-wide collaboration for the good of them all. But after an incident, they slowly turn to conflict and war, which grows over the second part of the book. I liked the lessons this book imparts. There were some really clever bits of writing. I particularly liked the recipe at the start of ch 5 “a recipe for a souflee of advanced aggression.” This was a great first installment to an exciting YA series and I look forward to reading more! 5/5 stars. ( )