Landscape with Invisible Hand

By M.T. Anderson

Book Overview

"Practically every word reflects a prescient, bitingly precise critique of contemporary human folly, of economic and environmental inequities and absurdities." -- The Horn Book (starred review)

Now a major motion picture

When the vuvv first landed, it came as a surprise to aspiring artist Adam and the rest of planet Earth, though not an unwelcome one. But with his parents' jobs replaced by alien tech and no money for food, clean water, or the vuvv's miraculous medicine, Adam has to get creative to survive. And soon enough, Adam must decide how far he's willing to go -- and what he's willing to sacrifice -- to give the vuvv what they want. National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson returns to future Earth in a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0763699500
• ISBN13: 9780763699505
• Release Date: April 2019
• Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

A different concept of first contact.

The story is basically about what happens if aliens made contact and "fixed" everything, but only some people, the ones living on the platform above the planet, love it. The people still on earth are left with no jobs, food or resources except for what the people above them throw down and what the aliens provide. The book focuses on a teenager and his family having to deal with the situation anyway they can, so he decides to be on a tv show with his girlfriend and it doesn't work out the way they'd planned. All the while he's trying to create artworks so he can win an art competition and get his family to the upper class platform. I actually liked the movie better because it focused more on the main family's interactions and the art the main character was making. The book wasn't bad it just didn't catch my attention like I felt it should. The ending of the book surprised me by how hopeful it was in a strange way.