The Lives of Tao

Chu, Wesley. The Lives of Tao. Angry Robot, 2013.

Tao is from a race of aliens that crash-landed on Earth millions of years ago. His race can't survive in our atmosphere, but they can inhabit the bodies of other creatures, so the aliens have been "possessing" creatures from the time of the dinosaurs. Now they inhabit humans, for the most part, in an attempt to bring technology up to a level where they can repair their ship and return home. But there's a feud of sorts going on among the aliens, which plays out in political battles among humans.

Enter Roen. Roen is a white, middle-aged, out of shape man who works in a cubicle for a random IT company. Roen becomes inhabited by Tao after Tao's previous host dies. Now Tao has to convince Roen that 1) Tao is real and 2) Roen is not crazy. And Roen needs to be trained. Soon. Because the battle is still waging around him and Roen is not ready to fight.

This book was a lot more entertaining than the cover or title made it seem to be. I only picked it up because it was part of YALSA's Hub Challenge, and I actually had to purchase a copy of this book since none of my local libraries carried it. But I'm glad I did. This book was a lot of fun, and I could see it being entertaining for adults and older teens. It doesn't fit the demographic of my middle school library, though, so I will be keeping this copy for myself.

Recommended for: older teens, adults

Red Flags: language, violence

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars