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Not joking, major spoilers. Read on at your own risk!

In We Are the Ants, Henry is a longtime alien abductee, who is then told life on Earth is going to end, but that he can stop it. However, the book ends before the given date, and he's yet to press the button.

I was hoping to explore the different interpretations this exact ending allows. Were the aliens real? Did the world end the next day? If the aliens were real, was the world really going to end? Or was it an experiment?
Maybe the entire book was just a normal boy's extra credit project.

Thoughts?

This ending leaves us with all of those questions. I didn't feel that it was all just Henry's extra credit project. I felt that all the events in the whole diary except for the end of the world scenarios were real, at least to Henry. I don't mind that the diary became his report. But I do hate this type of cop-out what happens next ending. I would have preferred one last trip to the spaceship so Henry could press the button.

This is a good question. Most of me thinks that this was the author's way of showing how sick/depressed Henry really was. These visions that he had were more of his way of escape from the real world and Henry thinking that he had the power to end the world (perhaps commit suicide). It was clear throughout the book that this young man needed more help that he was given for a long time.

Although, it is hard to explain the disappearances and the lack of clothing when he returns. Then, the last bit of me believes that in the story, perhaps there were aliens, but the button was never going to do anything. The "end date" would come and go as if any other day, but the aliens were just trying to help a poor boy remember that life is worth living.

I don't want to think that this book was some type of extra credit project. I want to believe that the entries that he shared were really from his journals.

hsimone wrote:Although, it is hard to explain the disappearances and the lack of clothing when he returns. Then, the last bit of me believes that in the story, perhaps there were aliens, but the button was never going to do anything. The "end date" would come and go as if any other day, but the aliens were just trying to help a poor boy remember that life is worth living.

This is the one I prefer

Gravy wrote:

hsimone wrote:Although, it is hard to explain the disappearances and the lack of clothing when he returns. Then, the last bit of me believes that in the story, perhaps there were aliens, but the button was never going to do anything. The "end date" would come and go as if any other day, but the aliens were just trying to help a poor boy remember that life is worth living.

This is the one I prefer

I agree as well, though I believe that the aliens were real due to the disappearances and lack of clothing.

gali wrote:

Gravy wrote:

hsimone wrote:Although, it is hard to explain the disappearances and the lack of clothing when he returns. Then, the last bit of me believes that in the story, perhaps there were aliens, but the button was never going to do anything. The "end date" would come and go as if any other day, but the aliens were just trying to help a poor boy remember that life is worth living.

This is the one I prefer

I agree as well, though I believe that the aliens were real due to the disappearances and lack of clothing.

Yeah, you'd think he might've learned to wear plain boxers

The end date was set at a date only shortly after the book was published. The author had to know that the vast majority of people reading this book are reading it after the presumed end date. So my theory is the author expects us to assume that since we're all still here after the end date, Henry was abducted one more time and he pressed the button.

Or it was all just part of Henry's extra credit. Or Henry is really more unstable than we knew. Anyone's guess is as good as mine.

My theory regarding the aliens and his random nakedness after the visits were possibly a form of dissociation where he would temporarily black out and come to in some random place. Maybe even a type of personality disorder. This is just a thought but with everything going on and the way the book ended I did struggle with the same questions as mentioned above. Maybe it was all in his head, and it made an excellent extra credit project?

I liked the ending. For me, it was more important that he wanted to push the button because he found worth in himself than him actually physically pushing the button. As far as I'm concerned, the aliens were real. I don't know if the world would have ended or not, but I'm not really worried about that.

I like books that tie up lose ends. With this type of ending, my imagination goes a little wild thinking about the what ifs. I would love to have known that Henry pushed the button and saved the world. I would like to also get a glimpse inside Henry's and Diego's relationship a little more.

Jennifer Allsbrook wrote:I like books that tie up lose ends. With this type of ending, my imagination goes a little wild thinking about the what ifs. I would love to have known that Henry pushed the button and saved the world. I would like to also get a glimpse inside Henry's and Diego's relationship a little more.

I wanted him to push the button too. What happened after the date? I needed a pretty bow and instead there are too many possibilities. I guess I agree with the idea that the aliens were just trying to get him to change the way he was living. They were hoping that he could see goodness/possibilities somewhere on Earth and that the button didn't really do anything afterall. I guess he did have a few hours before the world ended. He could have still been abducted and pushed the button.

I was hoping to explore the different interpretations this exact ending allows. Were the aliens real? Did the world end the next day? If the aliens were real, was the world really going to end? Or was it an experiment?
Maybe the entire book was just a normal boy's extra credit project.

I have to refer to an earlier post where I defend the position that aliens are real. Whether the world did end the next day or not doesn't matter if you accept the idea of alternate realities. If he didn't push it, here we are, in an alternate reality. If he did push it, here we are but not as modified as we would be if he hadn't pushed it. I believe the entire book was a boy's extra credit project. But the boy wasn't normal. Neither was the accepting teacher. Remember how she described her high school experiences to Henry? And because these were two special people, Henry felt comfortable in being honest with his journal entries.