If the world were going to be destroyed and you could stop it, would you? More tension there than Hitchhikers Guide which destroys it right at the beginning. And then there's [b:The Three-Body Problem|20518872|The Three-Body Problem|Liu Cixin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1415428227s/20518872.jpg|25696480] which I am linking to because it was so excellent. There, the Earth was spared (so far) but I had sided with those who wanted to wipe out humanity, and not just because I was bullied as a kid (I was!) Also for the Cultural Revolution. And the we-are-bugs metaphor was different: Bugs are easily crushed under foot and yet manage to survive anyway. Go read this book now!

From the standpoint of a character in a novel, the book is the world and that world ends when the book is finished. It would end for me when I abandoned the book and I was considering it. This seems to be my year for abandoning books. I'd just given up on a DeLillo novel, and I thought he was immune from such rough treatment at my hands. I put aside a Vernor Vinge (but I'll probably return to it) to read Ants because it was so beloved.

The characters have the subtlety of a Harry Potter character and a similar psychology. (I am not a Rowling fan.) But I understand that good novels are hard to write while bad reviews are easy and the gratuitous cruelty that pervades the book (so far) has made me want to be kind. And I read a review herein where the author said, at 66% of the way in, that his rating was about to drop below three stars but the ending saved it.

And so, I will trust this reviewer (with the wonderful handle "snotchocheese") (I'm not quite at 66% yet) and shall continue.

But I'm still betting that Henry ends up with Diego and decides to save the world, as I was betting from the first scene where Diego shows up.
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Well I mostly lost my bet. Not totally but as to the specifics. I did guess that

[spoiler alert]

Audrey broke the car windows so I get some credit.
And it did get better. Not super better but it gets its full 3 stars.

Here's the thing about ants. They cooperate. They don't try to hurt each other for the sheer joy of it. And here's the thing about so-called mental illness. It's rarely if ever about brain chemicals. If it's a mystery, it's because we are mysteries to ourselves and others; not because the narratives of our lives don't make sense. And we are mysteries because, mainly, we don't want to know--about others because they hide from us and because we don't pay attention because we're too self-involved, and about ourselves because we're afraid of what we'll find out.

That's overly simplified but oversimplification is keeping with the style of this kind of book. And the cruelty doesn't go away when you leave high school. It just changes form so that you can't see it so clearly. That's part of keeping things mysterious. And in that context, mental illness becomes the ability to fit in with the hidden cruelties now packaged as law enforcement, war, healthy competition, employment, the virtue of selfishness. We grow (as Charlie? says) a thinker skin, which means we become less sensitive, which means we become more out of touch with reality but more in tune with our culture.