If, when reading the book, people come to realize that building a new world implies killing the old one, it works again. If the aim of this book is to make humans realize they matter and that humanity itself is already beautiful just through the fact that it exists, it works. The endeavor is not new, the synopsis is not new either, most scenes give you a déjà connu feeling and the literary style is rather naive and sometimes, unnecessarily pretentious.

The book is actually the portrayal of this journey of getting to know humans and most of all, appreciate and value them. The alien that substitutes Andrew Martin comes to discover step by step what being a human means and why this attribute is of great value in its present form, through various social interactions, among which, the most significant are those with the Professor’s wife and teenage son. How would those perfect beings compare to what we now see as imperfect humans? Using the Riemann Hypothesis as a symbol for the last mathematical riddle the Universe poses to us, Haig dabbles the subject of the transformation humanity would undergo if all of its main now problems and limits would disappear and what would happen if what our present collective mind considers a perfect existence, with no pain, no social problems and no death, would become a reality. Since that rainy night, the Professor’s existence has been irremediably changed and that of humanity, too. “The Humans” is a satire in the form of a science-fiction novel that tells the story of Cambridge Professor Andrew Martin and his peculiar, but fascinating experience as a being for whom even basic human attributes seem alien as a result of an “incident” that triggered curious, but revelatory happenings. Among his best-selling books, “The Last Family in England” and “The Radleys”. Matt Haig is a British novelist whose works have been translated into over twenty languages. In this matter, the 3rd cover was quite useful. I was not familiar with the author either.

It was given to me as a present and because it was different than what I would usually choose to read, I took it as a challenge and started reading right away. It is a book I would’ve probably never picked up to read based on its 4th cover description. “The Humans” was one of my holiday reads.

The humans matt haig reviews