We Are the Ants

Aliens have snatched Henry Denton before, and nobody has ever taken his word for it. Now they set a clock running: after 144 days he may press a button to stop Earth from being destroyed, or he may do nothing. The decision rests with him.

Henry doubts the planet deserves rescuing. His boyfriend recently killed himself, and the grief has not let up. Home offers no relief: his mother, raising the family alone, is exhausted, his brother is about to have a baby as a teenager, and his grandmother is slipping into Alzheimer's.

Diego changes the picture a little. He is an artist, wary of people, with a painful history of his own. Being near him gives Henry reasons to want to remain, and the countdown stops feeling like a joke.

Young adult fiction that sets a science fiction premise inside blunt, realistic contemporary drama. The alien setup is absurd on purpose, and it carries a serious question about what makes a life, or a world, worth choosing. Grief weighs heavily on every chapter, with a ticking deadline underneath.