Key Lime Sky by Al Hess

Book Review

Melody Bowles

The premise of Key Lime Sky is fairly simple. One day, a UFO crashed near a small town in Wyoming. The town’s environment then begins to change – yellow sandstorms, seashells raining from the sky, roads that trap people on them forever – and the majority of its citizens begin acting violently. Only a few people seem aware of the changes, and one of them is Denver, the protagonist and narrator.

Denver is autistic, non-binary and the story’s real focus. The novel’s title comes from Denver’s love of pie. Their job is running a pie-based review blog in exchange for advertising revenue. A lot of the book’s humour comes from Denver’s bluntness and the way they misunderstand their way through social situations. But the book doesn’t shy away from exploring what it’s like to be autistic and living in a world full of uncomfortable noise and other sensations. Despite the plotline revolving around an alien incursion, Denver’s journey was the most compelling part of the novel to me. They start off isolated with only a tank full of fish for company, but over the course of the book, they make friends, fall in love and reconnect with their family.

The town’s altered environment is the main villain of the book. A neverending highway, shops where people disappear, doors and walls that move around and houses suddenly hovering in the air give the characters plenty of obstacles to overcome. A character called Molly, obsessed with controlling humans in this strange new world, also becomes the major human antagonist. She feels underbaked compared to the other characters – too cartoonishly villainous.

Ezra is the other character who needs a mention – a very sweet love interest with whom Denver teams up for most of the book. Their romantic subplot provides a gentle contrast and relief to the rather creepy and unsettling environmental damage going on around the characters.

Read Key Lime Sky if you’d like a humourous, quirky, romantic adventure set during an unconventional alien invasion.