Everybody Sees the Ants

Everybody Sees the Ants, a young adult novel by A.S. King, follows fifteen-year-old Lucky Linderman as he struggles to cope with a bully named Nader McMillan and the strange and unhealthy behaviors he sees in his own family. The novel splits time between Pennsylvania and Arizona, where Lucky finds strength by learning from his Uncle Dave and a crush named Ginny, and in Lucky's dreams of the jungles of Vietnam, where he tries to rescue his missing grandfather.

The book begins by introducing Lucky's many predicaments. He has been ruthlessly bullied, both physically and emotionally, by Nader McMillan for years, and it has taken a toll on his perception of himself and his hopes for the future. His school is concerned because he chose to do his social studies research project on teen suicide, and they are keeping tabs on him to make sure he's not at-risk. Lucky is also angry at his parents, whom he sees as cold and distant; he is particularly annoyed at his mother, Lori, for her denial about the problems in their family.

Lucky copes with his situation by escaping into dreams of Vietnam, where his obsession with his POW/MIA grandfather comes to life. In the dreams, he meets and befriends his grandfather, lost decades ago in the Vietnam War, and tries to bring him to safety to fulfill a promise to his grandmother. The dreams are vivid and reflect a generational struggle with a traumatic experience that shaped his father and his grandmother's lives and, in turn, his own experiences.



Another escape comes when Lori brings Lucky to her brother Dave's house in Arizona, where Lucky discovers that the problems in the family don't stop at his front door. Though Lucky starts to see the patterns of behavior that have shaped his family more clearly in Arizona, he finds some solace there – Dave teaches Lucky how to lift weights, giving him advice about how to cope with a bully, and he begins to grow closer to his mother during the three weeks they spend with his aunt and uncle. Also, recognizing the ways that pain can shape behavior, Lucky begins to forgive his Aunt Jodi, who abuses prescription medication, because he sees that she is struggling with her knowledge that her husband is having multiple affairs.

In Arizona, Lucky also meets Ginny, his first love and first kiss, whose parents are using her to promote their hair care line by forcing her to model their products. Ginny feels similarly trapped in her own family life; Lucky becomes her only solace when she shaves her head in rebellion, and her mother beats her for her disobedience. The two teenagers bond over their shared traumas, finding hope in each other.

Back in his hometown in Pennsylvania, Lori begins to stand up for her son by filing a complaint at the community swimming pool where Nader works and getting him fired. Lucky uses the strength he learned from his mother and his uncle Dave, standing up to Nader as well, threatening to call the police if Nader ever comes near him again.



Having overcome much of his self-doubt, Lucky discovers that he has the strength to face the challenges in his life, finding similar resolutions in his dreams about Vietnam. At the end of the novel, Lucky's adventure with his grandfather comes to an end. Lucky buries his grandfather, who has been mortally wounded, and in the last moments of his grandfather's life, he is given a wedding ring, which his grandfather asks him to give to his father, Vic. King stretches the bounds of reality in the final scene when Lucky wakes up with the wedding ring clutched in his hand and begins to tell his family the story of his dreams and of his lost grandfather.

A.S. King is considered by the New York Times Book Review to be “one of the best YA authors working today.” She has won dozens of awards for her fiction, which are primarily novels about teenagers struggling to find themselves in complicated home environments. Though A.S. King writes primarily about teenagers, she sees her work as part of a larger endeavor to teach children about how they can shape their adult lives, and to teach adults how their childhoods may have impacted their struggles in adulthood. Everybody Sees the Ants won a Junior Library Guild listing, was an Andre Norton Award finalist in 2011, and was listed in the American Library Association Top Fiction for Young Adults in 2012. Her other works have won Cybils and Printz awards, among other recognitions.