The Dark Side of Nowhere

The Dark Side of Nowhere (1997), a young adult science fiction book by American author Neal Shusterman, tells the story of Jason, a seemingly normal boy in a normal town who slowly comes to realize he is an alien.

At the beginning of the book, Jason Miller is a bored adolescent who believes his life and family are too normal. Things start to change for Jason, however, when a classmate named Ethan dies. Everyone says the boy died of appendicitis, but there is a rumor that Ethan died for some other, more mysterious reason. Perhaps because he is looking for ways to make life more interesting, Jason comes to believe these rumors. His suspicion increases after he sees Ethan's family at the boy's funeral. They aren't crying or reacting to the boy's death in any way. Meanwhile, Jason's father tries to assuage his son's suspicions by saying the family is merely in shock.

Sometime later, Jason is at his Little League game when another boy insults the pitcher, Paula, on whom Jason has a crush. Jason fights the boy but is badly beaten. He retreats to the bathroom to tend to his bruises where he encounters Mr. Grant, a mysterious janitor who hands him a magic baseball glove that shoots BB pellets. Jason is understandably confused, but Mr. Grant tells him to meet him later at an old barn in a part of the neighborhood called Old Town. Despite the creepiness of this exchange, Jason is intrigued.



When Jason sees Paula the next day, he expects her to be happy with him for sticking up for her. Instead, she is merely angry with Jason for distracting her and ruining her chances of throwing a perfect game and a no-hitter. In order to win back her friendship, Jason shows her the magic glove even though Mr. Grant told him to keep it a secret. She is excited by the glove, and the two of them travel to Old Town where they see a scary-looking sign that reads "God Help Us." They also find a photograph of a Billy Chambers who used to go to their school but disappeared.

Back at school, Jason and a number of other students receive their monthly shots. These shots are presumably medicine, but there is actually a more mysterious explanation to be revealed later. The next day, Jason goes to the meeting place in Old Town to learn more about the glove. There, he sees a number of other students, including his friend Wesley, all of whom possess a similar glove. No answers are forthcoming yet. Nevertheless, Jason's suspicions are piqued by the fact that each kid at the meeting place has parents who are friends with each other.

Jason goes home to confront his parents about the glove. At this, his dad finally tells Jason the truth: Jason and his family are aliens. They take on the form of students and parents who leave town. Moreover, the monthly shots are designed to hide the aliens' true appearances. Something about the process if wrong, however, because the monthly shots soon become weekly shots. Meanwhile, the janitor, Mr. Grant, clearly wanted the secret to get out, because all the other kids who went to the meeting place asked their parents, and most of the parents told them. Finally, Jason learns that Ethan isn't really dead. Instead, he merely couldn't suppress his alien appearance any longer, and so his parents had to keep him hidden inside.



Later on, it is revealed that Mr. Grant had a second ulterior motive: He wanted Jason to unite all the other alien kids. It turns out that the kids, known as Transitionals, were sent to scout out the planet for a possible alien invasion by their overlords. They would take a spaceship hidden in Old Town back to the aliens to plan for the attack. However, Jason doesn't want that. He's pretty much dating Paula at this point and does not want to lose the life he's built, despite believing it to be a boring life earlier in the book. Meanwhile, the shots don't seem to be working anymore which suggests that it's nearly time for the Transitionals to report back to their alien overlords to initiate the invasion.

Wesley, in particular, finds it difficult to deal with all of this. He locks himself in the spaceship, enters the launch code, and tries to shoot anyone who comes close with his BB pellet baseball glove. Jason, endowed with a new sense of heroism, looks to save Wesley from being launched into space. With the help of Paula, he is successful in doing so. Unfortunately, the ship launches and everyone in town sees it. The secret is officially out about the aliens in town.

In the end, Jason and his family come clean to the authorities about their alien identities in an effort to bridge friendship and partnership with the humans of Earth.



The Dark Side of Nowhere has a strong message for young adults: that one should never take having a "normal" family and life for granted.