For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Remarkably Bright Creatures, this “unique, engaging, and insightful” (Pip Williams, author of The Dictionary of Lost Words) debut novel about one little girl’s obsession with a mysterious manuscript is a love letter to language—how it shapes the world for each of us and connects us all in the end. “Climb up here, Little Alien. Sit next to me. I will tell you about life on this planet. I will tell you how it goes.” Before she thinks of herself as Little Alien, our narrator is only a lonely little girl living in southeast England, who doesn’t understand the world the way other children seem to. So when a late-night TV special introduces her to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript—an ancient tome written in an indecipherable language—Little Alien experiences something she hasn’t before: hope. Could there be others like her, who also feel like they’re from another planet? Convinced the Voynich Manuscript holds the answers she needs, Little Alien turns to the place she feels at peace: the library. What she learns there sets Little Alien and her best (and only) friend Bobby on a course toward finding this strange book. Where it leads them will change everything. Narrated by an unexpected guide who has arrived to offer Little Alien the advice she’ll need to find her way, Life Hacks for a Little Alien explores a less-usual experience of the world with heartbreaking empathy. Inviting us into the head of a child who doesn’t read her surroundings the way we might assume, Alice Franklin will have readers swinging from stitches to tears on the uneven path to finding a life that fits, even when you yourself do not.
