Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan
Matthew is a very average teenager, he has a close friend, Brian, who is always smoking weed and getting high, and he usually hangs out with Brian's older sister, Sam, whom Matty really likes; he lives in a very small town, where there is not much to see and he lives an ordinary life with his parents. Well, that is until Matthew's life changes completely.
DJ, Matthew's father has always loved stars and consequently, Matty used to love them too, but he simply grew out of it. But once his father leaves him and his mother, Matthew is in charge of taking care of her mother, who was left heartbroken after her husband left. While he is trying to make sure her mother is okay, he sees something new near his house.
There's a girl. Very skinny. Very pale. With very white hair. And very beautiful.
Matthew gets closer to her and realizes that she is different, and well, she says that she is different too. Priya, the girl, says that she comes from another planet and that she has come to the Earth to collect data to send back to her planet, where everyone is just like us but with different ways of doing things. For example, they can all share information through their heads. Priya says that her spaceship is coming to get her and that she is going home soon, she says she is sure that the spaceship is coming for her because that's what her calculations showed her. Yet, the days keep passing and Priya continues to be there, exactly where Matty says goodbye to her.
After a couple of days, Matthew decides to show her around and help her with her investigation. That´s why he ends up showing her his extremely boring town. Later, he decides to go to the lake with Brian, where Priya is in an accident because she doesn't remember how to swim, that´s where Sam tells Matty that there seems to be something wrong with her and that he should be careful with her. This only makes Matty realize that there are many things wrong with Priya and that he should be more careful. This makes him start feeling uneasy with her. Is Sam correct? Is there really something wrong with Priya? Is she even from another planet? If so, why did her ride put her exactly in his yard?
When I first read that a normal teenager met an alien outside of his house, I thought this was going to be really great story. I mean, I thought that this was probably going to be a little but like Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout, which I REALLY enjoyed reading and made me fall in love with aliens, so I thought I would really enjoy this novel. But honestly, this is just completely different from Daemon.
I really tried to like this novel a lot, but I found it to be too peculiar for my taste. I mean, I am always open to different plots because after reading the same type of stories, as a reader, I get tired of some plots, and yes, Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan is definitely something new and refreshing, but I found out too weird for me.
I did like the pace of the novel, it was slow, but at the same time quick. By this mean that although there are only eight days (which is the number of chapters), the days pass fairly quickly because so many things happen in such a short time for both characters that sometimes, it is even hard to remember that all of that happened in a single day. But the novel is a fairly quick reading because it only focuses on two things in Matty´s life: Priya and his father. So, overall, it is a reading that you will be able to finish in a sitting.
On the other hand, I did enjoy Matthew´s character a lot because he was a funny narrator and seeing the story from his perspective was very interesting, but I didn't like Priya. I found her a little annoying and the ending just really frustrated me. I just didn't like her attitude at all and at times, I found myself cringing.
Sam is a character that I was hoping to get to know better because I was expecting to get some drama from her relationship with Matthew, but there wasn't´ anything that kept me going because she only appears in like two chapters, which is exactly what happened with Brian, her brother, too. Although I didn't really like Brian, I was expecting to get to know him better because Priya was just too boring for me, but he just disappears on the second chapter with his family.
I really wanted to read some character development from everyone, but I didn't really notice any changes from Matthew or Priya, and like I mentioned, Sam and Brian weren't even part of the story.
In addition, I didn´t really like the story itself because I found it to be too boring because nothing really happened, the whole story just revolved around Priya and although I really like novels focused on the romantic relationship, I found it annoying to notice that Matthew was not caring enough for his mothers although he actually took the time to talk about her. Similarly, I found the story to be weird, as mentioned before. I just didn't really feel the whole dating an alien and eating pizza with a random girl that just didn't look normal and the whole idea of knowing someone that considers herself to be an alien and actually having someone, like Matthew, believing in that without any real proof. For example, Daemon actually shows Kat his powers and how she shines like a Christmas tree, but Matthew was just a naive teenager that believed everything that the beautiful girl told him.
As much as I disliked this novel, there were some things that I liked as well, such as the way the chapters were organized, which is by days. It was a simple, but at the same time, really effective because it was creative and really enjoyed reading it like that.
On the other hand, I really liked the writing, in fact, I found it beautiful because Jordan was able to write a story that was fun, romantic and at the same time, realistic in the sense of Matty´s point of view.
In addition, I really enjoyed the ending because it was realistic and very touching. I think I enjoyed it because it was very different from the whole story since the story was very optimistic while the ending was sad and realistic.
Overall, Eight Days on Planet Earth is a quick sci-fi book with a funny narrator and the main character that you won´t forget. You will also get to know Earth like never before.
I would like to thank Edelweiss and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this novel.
