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    Neon Green
    Neon Green
    Neon Green
    Audiobook10 hours

    Neon Green

    Written by Margaret Wappler

    Narrated by Danny Campbell

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    It's the summer of 1994 in suburban Chicago: Forrest Gump is still in theaters, teens are reeling from the recent death of Kurt Cobain, and you can enter a sweepstakes for a spaceship from Jupiter to land in your backyard. Welcome to Margaret Wappler's slightly altered 90s. Everything's pretty much the way you remember it, except for the aliens.

    When a flying saucer lands in the Allens' backyard, family patriarch and environmental activist Ernest is up in arms. According to the company facilitating the visits, the spaceship is 100 percent non-toxic, but as Ernest's panic increases, so do his questions: What are the effects of longterm exposure to the saucer and why is it really here?

    The family starts logging the spaceship's daily fits and starts but it doesn't get them any closer to figuring out the spaceship's comically erratic behavior. Ernest's wife Cynthia and their children, Alison and Gabe, are less concerned with the saucer, and more worried about their father's growing paranoia (not to mention their mundane, suburban existences). Set before the arrival of the internet, Neon Green will stun, unnerve, and charm readers with its loving depiction of a suburban family living on the cusp of the future.

    Editor's Note

    Blends sci-fi and drama…

    There was a lot going on in 1994. “Friends” made its television debut, O.J. and his Bronco were chased by the police, and in this alternative history by Margaret Wappler, aliens visit Earth. Focusing on the family whose backyard is where the spaceship lands, this surreal story nimbly blends science fiction with moving drama.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEverand Productions
    Release dateFeb 2, 2021
    ISBN9781094415185
    Author

    Margaret Wappler

    Margaret Wappler is the author of the novel Neon Green. She has written about the arts and pop culture for the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Elle, The Believer, The Village Voice and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for Neon Green

    3.5/5

    75 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      En 1994 un ambientalista y su familia se enfrentan a la llegada de un platillo al patio de su casa, en ese mundo desde los 60s se sabe que hay vida inteligente en Júpiter y desde Reagan se les ha permitido visitar la tierra. La madre desarrolla cáncer y el esposo culpa al artefacto extraterrestre, aunque más tarde descubrirá que la causa está en un cercano parque contaminado por la compañía de gas. La narradora muestra las tribulaciones de una familia y cómo estrechan sus lazos, pero también una pérdida, la muerte de la madre,de manera inteligente y divertida.
    • 4/5
      Definitely not what I expected going into it. The spacecraft is more of a backdrop to an evolving family dynamic which creates the arch of this story. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, even though I found the narrator an odd choice.
    • 3/5
      I did and did not like this book, and I think the narration accounts for the “did not like” part. For one, the narrator’s delivery was a little too tongue in cheek, causing me to feel like I was always waiting for a punchline that never materialized. Mostly, though, he made absolutely no effort to distinguish different voices, so every character sounded exactly the same; this made following dialogue difficult and confusing.

      With that said, the plot was interesting and the writing was very good. I would be interested in other books by this same author, albeit with a different narrator.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Didn't go more than 10 minutes...book is maybe good, but got the impression the narrator will have so asthma crisis.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Truly the worst book I’ve listened to. Psychotic eco dad vs an alien ship that does nothing. There is nothing redeeming about this book. I should have put it down after chapter 5.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Anticlimactic ending with nothing resolved. It was a bit of a downer. And the narrator's voice didn't fit the characters.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Neon Green by Margaret Wappler is a highly recommended alternate history novel set in 1994 in Prairie Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and follows the Allen Family, Ernest and Cynthia, and their two teenagers Alison and Gabe. In this 1994, you can enter a sweepstakes to have a spaceship from Jupiter land in your backyard for 9 months, give or take a few weeks. Everything else is the 1994 you remember.Ernest Allen, environmental activist and family patriarch, is indignant that Gabe entered the contest and actually won. Once the spaceship lands in their backyard, he is outraged and immediately corners Gabe, the only person over 16 who would have dared enter the sweepstakes. He then starts calling New World Enterprises, the company sponsoring the spaceships. First he wants them to remove it because he is sure that the ship is not environmentally safe and is dumping toxins into their yard every time it dumps gallons of neon green fluid onto his lawn. The EPA has declared it is safe, and Ernest has now real recourse, except to nag New World with phone calls. What kind of environmental footprint is this thing leaving?He also has his family start a journal to record everything the spaceship does, including it's almost nightly show of lights and beeps and any discharge of the green liquid. They do this, but they also record other, less serious things, much to Ernest's consternation. He is very serious about the log. Ernest becomes increasingly obsessed and paranoid, inflicting his family with his daily preoccupations and diatribes. He really thinks that everyone should feel the same way he does. This obsessing is an on-going pattern for Ernest.Ultimately, this is not a novel about the spaceship or aliens. It's a dysfunctional family saga. It's about how one man's obsession is affecting his whole family, and making them all suffer needlessly because he needs to blame something. Ernest may be freaking out over the spaceship, but he could just as easily be obsessing over the effect high voltage power lines and/or electromagnetic fields could have on his family's health.Wappler's story is quite funny at times, especially Gabe and Alison reactions, but it is also heartbreaking. I really grew to dislike Ernest and felt that if he was really that serious, he should have tried to move. I would imagine there would be some kind of real estate market for a home with a spaceship in the backyard. He was so focused on it that he completely lost track of what he claimed to care about - his family - until it was too late to save what was left. My heart broke for Cynthia. She still loved him, but she deserved better from Ernest.Neon Green is well written, but it also seemed to move slowly. This is a novel for those who like literary fiction involving a dysfunctional family in a unique setting. It isn't a novel for fans of science fiction. The spaceship is there, but it's simple a large visual representation of Ernest's character trait of obsessing over various subjects. Gabe and Alison were highlights. Neon Green could be a good choice for a book club because I imagine there are alternate views. Based on your devotion to environmental causes, you might appreciate Ernest much more than I did, and accept his flaws much easier.Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.

      1 person found this helpful