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I don't know how to rate this, so I won't. This is essentially the graphic novel equivalent of scream-sobbing into a pillow and then maybe hitting your head against the wall and breaking your own arm and sobbing some more. It's... certainly evocative? Definitely art. I... am genuinely not sure whether I am glad to have read this or deeply regretful of it.

Either way, don't read this when you are in a fragile place. Like, not even if you're sort-of kind-of close to a fragile place. This guy basically printed out his existential despair and bound it into a book. It's honestly impressive how effecting it is. Some of it is outright genius. Some of it is a very specific kind of relatable. Almost all of it is extremely upsetting. Kind of like Happy Tree Friends or Don't Hug Me I'm Scared type of upsetting, but mixed with an anti-war novel, For Adults^TM, and making a Existential/Philosophical Point^TM, and therefore somehow even worse. Or better, I suppose, depending on your perspective, since that was clearly the goal. The author accomplished his goal, for sure, no doubts about that.

Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not more depressed right now, having just read this. I don't know why I'm not because I should be. I think maybe the... wtf-ness of it kind of defused the grimdark horror of it? Maybe? I dunno. This entire "review" is just a hot take, though, having just finished the book.

-------------------------------------- the rest of this is basically just a rant, fair warning ----------------

Anyways... I do have some specific criticisms. The ants in this book are metaphors for humans, and I get the impression the author doesn't actually care about/isn't interested in ants beyond that. Sometimes this manifests in the form of sudden absurdity - turns out the Queen Ant has bones? BONES? In an ant?? - but it's front-and-center in the book's portrayal of sex and gender.

All the worker ants are male, in this. These male worker ants look, more or less, like ants, with the appropriate number of legs, and segmented bodies, and antennae.

The Queen is drawn as a giant, anthropomorphic monstrosity (with, apparently, an endoskeleton) whose genitalia and gigantic boobs are always the focus.

The "infertile females" - who, in this book, are relegated to childcare, kitchen-duty, and sex, and who are exclusively referred to as "infertile females" and never named (though to be fair I don't think any of the main characters are named either) - are straight up just drawn as human. They have 4 legs. They have flowing hair. They have boobs. Their bodies are not segmented or antlike in the least; they smooth, tall, human shapes. These are supposed to be ants!

It's a classic problem in the art of fantasy video games: the male version of a fantasy race looks appropriately alien or monstrous, and the female version looks like a human with some facepaint. Or the men are allowed to look all kinds of different ways, and the women are defined primarily by tiny handful of "this is a female" shorthand markers like being pink and having a bow in their hair (this happens a lot especially when there is a female character who is "female version of [male character here] instead of being her own actually original character). Thus, female characters are often reduced to their gender, as if that is the only thing that matters about them.

Fortunately the video game industry does seem to be moving away from this - it used to be a lot more common than it is now. Unless I just don't play the games where this is still a problem anymore.

But yeah. It's jarring as hell to see this sort of issue in the art of a book that is taking itself extremely seriously. Although, I suppose it does fit in with the art of the many white male artists who get labeled "auteurs" (a label NEVER given to anyone but white men, so far as I know) because they make surreal art that also always just so happens to be deeply and ceaselessly sexist.

Anyway yeah fuck that. This book blatantly disregards anything that is cool about real ants, and simultaneously reduces all female characters to sex objects (in art and in story).

Also it flubs its handling of its two gay characters real bad, in my opinion. And not even in a creative way - the presentation is novel, but it's the same old, same old shitty tropes underneath that. And sure... everyone in this book is miserable or mad or evil, so maybe in this context others might not be as bothered by this subplot as I am, but I'm tired. So I stand by this opinion no matter what the author's sexuality may be (I have no idea).

...

So now it sounds like I just hate this book, I guess? And I kind of do. But. Buuuuuut. I dunno. There are things I liked about it too. It was maybe worth it just for earthworm kid's storyline.

Anyone considering purchasing or reading this book should read this New Yorker article about Dan Ariely's thoroughly documented habit of lying first: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/they-studied-dishonesty-was-their-work-a-lie.

This author has been repeatedly shown to have manipulated and outright fabricated data for his papers, including for more than one study about lying.

While he starts this book with a sympathetic account of his experience being made a figure in right-wing, Covid-19 related conspiracy theories, and indeed there are many lies about him to be found around the internet, it remains the case that he has accumulated a record of real, credible, very hard to refute accusations of lying about important things, without regard for the impact of these lies on the public, on politics, on innocent graduate students, or on the scientific endeavor as a whole.

Furthermore, the book does not appear to cover any new ground as far as this topic goes. It's an important topic, but it's been covered extensively by far more credible authors.

This book also takes a firmly neoliberal perspective on the topic, placing the blame on individuals rather than on systems, and making much of how "both sides" of the political spectrum succumb to misbelief. He goes on about how terrible it is that people have "lost trust" in institutions, as if that loss of trust is the root problem, and without acknowledging that these institutions often are untrustworthy or the many and varied ways they have failed and continue to fail people. And while it's true that there are conspiracy theories on the left - anti-vaxxers and so on - Ariely claims the distribution is equal across the political spectrum. He includes a graph very early on in which he shows a cherry-picked array of conspiracy theories, with unclearly labeled axis, supposed to show which conspiracy theories are more strongly held by which side of the left-right political spectrum binary, and including such items as "effort to stop the post office from processing mail-in ballots", "Russia manipulates U.S. politics" and "the GOP steals elections" on the left side. One can argue the terminology, but I think calling these "misbeliefs", aka the word Dan Ariely says he is using just because he wanted to avoid the stigma of "conspiracy theories", is stretching it at best, and he lumps them in with much wilder ideas (e.g. the world is lead by a cabal of evil pedophiles, and so on) as if they are equivalent so that he can show his perfectly balanced "both sides do this equally actually" graph. Ariely even deploys an anecdote about Russia (drumroll..). attempting to manipulate U.S. politics shortly after showing this graph.

The fact that he begins the book by coining a snappy buzzword - misbelief - is rather a red flag when it comes to these sorts of books, too. As is the fact that much of the book is a collection of anecdotes. It's the same-old, same-old playbook of these pop-sci "this one weird trick will fix everything while conveniently never inconveniencing those currently in power" behavioral economics guru books, this time from someone who has repeatedly, literally made up data for his papers. You can't trust any anecdote or data point or study account in this book.

And to be honest, in light of his currently being embroiled in scandal about his habitually producing disinformation in the form of manipulated or outright invented study results, his writing a book about conspiracy theories, beginning with a long intro (whose title claims even those who don't usually read intros should read it) bemoaning the lies people tell about him, kinda just feels like a setup to frame his credible accusers as "misbelievers" too. Or at best, perhaps writing this book is just a continuation of his apparent fascination with lying that presumably stems from the fact that he, himself, lies. See: the scientific papers about lying that he's made-up data for.

Shame on the publisher for publishing this anyway, as they absolutely knew about all this. Though it's not surprising - these sorts of popsci books are never fact checked by publishers.

It's not worth your time.

This cis/heteronormative rich white neoliberal morality crisis hellscape of a book was decidedly not meant for me and I don't know why I bothered to finish it.

It does have its moments, but. It's trying so hard to be self-aware and meaningful, and falling so short of it. It's so blatant that for a while I thought it was doing it on purpose, but no. And it just meanders and wallows, plot-wise.

And the main character is an insufferable rich "philanthropist" who can do no wrong and is repeatedly wronged by people who want his money.

He and the other characters barely have personalities at all.

The women, especially, feel peripheral. Even though the book is written by a woman, everything is about the men - even the parts about the MC volunteering at a women's shelter are about the men - and the men are more developed as characters. But this kind of fits in with everything else about the book.

I think I hate it, and I will probably soon forget it. At least, that's my hot take, having just finished it.

This cis/heteronormative rich white neoliberal morality crisis hellscape of a book was decidedly not meant for me and I don't know why I bothered to finish it.

It does have its moments, but. It's trying so hard to be self-aware and meaningful, and falling so short of it. It's so blatant that for a while I thought it was doing it on purpose, but no. And it just meanders and wallows, plot-wise.

And the main character is an insufferable rich "philanthropist" who can do no wrong and is repeatedly wronged by people who want his money.

He and the other characters barely have personalities at all.

The women, especially, feel peripheral. Even though the book is written by a woman, everything is about the men - even the parts about the MC volunteering at a women's shelter are about the men - and the men are more developed as characters. But this kind of fits in with everything else about the book.

I think I hate it, and I will probably soon forget it. At least, that's my hot take, having just finished it.