Thank you for the opportunities to read this book. I have attempted it on a number of occasions but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get into it.

I thought that the ideas where very unique including the idea of Ralph himself but I had to many issues with the writing- dialogue, characterization, pacing, etc.

When I saw the author was a philosophy Professor it made a lot more sense and I tried to read it with that in mind and Ralph had some interesting points but overall it was pretty sophomoric and I couldn't excuse the other problems with it.

Funny, quick little book. The premise was inventive and not one I've seen before (giant coke can, soup can, etc.)

Unfortunately I didn't love this book. The starting premise it great and Ralph themselves starts out very interesting. Ralph makes contact with the world via corporate slogans and the world goes nuts. Make no mistake, this book starts out odd and funny, but partway through the book shifts to a much more serious tone, and we start to understand why Ralph has shown themselves to humans in the first place.

Unfortunately, I feel like the book loses some of it's fun and unique insights into the world when this happen. Certain plot twists don't feel very twisty, and the book starts to take itself more seriously than I believe benefits it. I had issue pulling through the latter half of the book, Ralph becomes very preachy, and while a fair amount of that exposition is balanced by the reasons that are being on done in the book, it gets to the point where less could be more. It's a bit hard to describe it exactly without going into spoilers, but the book's introspection into the nature of humankind is one that you may have heard before.

If you're going to read this book, try to do it one-go. Losing the feeling and memory of Ralph when they first appeared will mean you'll probably lose a lot in the latter half of the book- something I find vital to the enjoying the character without them coming off as grating.

This book is a 2/5 for me, seems deeper than you'd think but ultimately a bit too shallow. Who knows, it might be your cup of tea.

A humorous sci-fi novel of an alien that comes to Earth. It was definitely humorous and Ralph made some thought-provoking observations. However, I found it to be kind of dumb and a bit clunky. I'm afraid humorous sci-fi just isn't for me anymore. If it's your thing, you may well love this and I hear the narrator is awesome, so give the audiobook a try.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

A soup can cover got my attention for this book. It promised humor, and it delivered. A drink diet coke logo on the moon is our "first contact" and it just goes from there. Rather like the Hitchhiker's Guide or Mystery 3000 theater, this is a funny book.


My copy came from Net Galley. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

Steinsvold has created a different take on first contact than previous scifi writers. The book is comical and light hearted. Fans of Hitchhiker's Guide would probably like it. Worth the read if you are looking for something different from the usual humans vs aliens

This book is 4 stars if not for one massive error... The use of the "N" word. It's not used once but twice. Both times are completely unnecessary. I was ready to hail Christopher Steinsvold as the new John Scalzi and rave about his fresh twist on Scalzi's Agent to the Stars. Instead I find him completely tone deaf. It's too bad such an otherwise delightful novel had to end this way. I'm massively disappointed.

A unique story that raises all kinds of questions. I picked this book because I was looking for something different. And boy, did I get it! Drink Diet Coke is written in red on the surface of the moon. What does it mean? Was the directive aimed at everyone? WHO WROTE IT? Why it had to be Coca Cola, right? That's where the story starts but it will take you for a wild ride from there. It ends with an alien trying to save the human race. Curious? So was I and I wasn't disappointed.

on the surface, christopher steinsvold's the book of ralph is another tale of first contact between us and THEM. you know THEM - the life we assume is out there just waiting for an excuse to drop in on us and tell us the secrets of the universe.

that's the surface.

what the book of ralph actually is? an incredible character study, not just of humans but of THEM (who is actually a he in this case). without any makeup, without any costumes, without a script, without any guide wires.

to be fair to this book it really deserves your complete attention for a few sittings and not the three months it took me. it's much richer going through it in a way that enables the characters, settings, and brilliance of the language as a character to settle over you.

four out of five stars

I received and electronic ARC of this novel from Netgallery in exchange for an honest review. And, honestly, I wish that Goodreads had half star ratings. I would give this book 3.5 stars. This is a very different alien invasion novel. I went into it with no preconceptions, just wanting to see what happens. It starts with a giant ad appearing on the moon. And it centers on the relationship between a helpful alien and a human who is called in to help figure out what is going on. Lots of good use of foreshadowing throughout the book. I think it was the philosophical arguments that really caught my attention and made me think. Made me look at some of the things I hate and why I hate them. The narrator does come across as a bit whiny to me, but in the middle of dealing with an alien invasion, is that so surprising?

I got a real kick out of the first third of this book.  I laughed, I told my friends how good it was and how much I was enjoying it. I posted about it on Litsy.  The next third felt, well, awkward as if the story had somehow gotten lost in the tangle of philosophical talking heads. And from then on it just went downhill for me as it turned into a weird sort of shaggy dog story.

It's so disappointing to be reading a book you think is amazeballs, and then watch it crash and burn. But on further consideration, I'm not sure what Steinsvold could have done with his premise.  It's one of those ideas writers have all the time: What if someone put an ad for Diet Coke on the moon?  Then we riff off of that for a while, and there's always some good stuff that comes out of it, but in the end that's not enough for a whole novel. If you can come up with a snappy ending, you can probably get a short story out of it.

But you know the story is going badly wrong when as you're reading, you're thinking "Will you shut UP already?" Probably the author wants you to be furrowing your brow and thinking "My, that's deep," and maybe it is, maybe Steinsvold's disdain for popular culture is really significant, and there is much we can learn from it, but honestly when I get repeatedly whacked over the head with A Message my receptivity suffers.  I'm not stupid, I got the point in the first chapter.  Time to move along.

Could the author's hand be heavier?  I doubt it.  Could he belabor points more completely? I can't imagine how. Could his ruminations on the nature of life and being human go on much longer? Oh god, I hope not.

So points for a good beginning, but this one was about as big a literary disappointment as I've had all year.

Like so many other readers (apparently), this one lost me somewhere in the middle... I really liked the concept and the beginning (and the cover). It felt fresh and snarky and original and I was entertained by its slams of pop culture and novel take on aliens. Ralph was cute without being saccharine-sweet; Markus was a great straight man and the perfect foil. I even liked that the evil, world-consuming aliens were Kardashians, from the planet Kardash... It felt tongue-in-cheek and wry and those are always wins in my book.

Then the first Bad Thing happens, leading up to the invasion, and I just felt like the book jumped the shark... (Yes, I went with a Happy Days reference - and for those of you too young to get the reference OR know what HD was, Google it... You won't be sorry.) The style and references that felt fresh and clever started feeling like jokes rehashed until the punch lines lose all meaning. And then it just started feeling ridiculous - even for the type of book it was. That may have been the satirical point - but even if it was, it stopped being fun to read and started feeling like a slog to keep turning pages.

Maybe I'm not the audience for this one. Or maybe it was just uneven. At this point, I'd say it's 50-50...

I liked the opening idea but got bogged down in how the reaction to it was handled. Between the Coca-Cola company, NASA, and the general public, it wasn’t realistic enough for me to stick with it.

The premise of this novel was intriguing as was the tongue-in-cheek tone but it quickly became flat for me. The characters felt bland, the dialogue completely unrealistic (granted, the story was pretty unrealistic but you can have *everything* totally out-there or else it's just a parody and "big" themes become meaningless). I was with the author until the aliens were named Kardashians (they were from Kardash, after all). I kind of groaned and went with it for a bit but it quickly wore on me. Then again, perhaps I'm just not the audience. I do like satire and I enjoy comic lit but this was just a slog for me. I wish I had enjoyed it more.

Now that I see the other reviews for this are 4 and 5 stars, I'm convinced I was not the right reader. I'm reviewing and rating only because I was given this book by Netgalley for an honest appraisal and well, I had to be honest.

The Book of Ralph caught my attention immediately with its offbeat cover, its mad description, and the interesting cast of characters. The plot was different from the usual SF book and I was happy to dive in. Unfortunately, about halfway through the book I felt as if I began to lose the thread of the story. The characters felt more annoying than interesting. The latter third of the book I was working much harder to continue. Sorry to say, the book just ran out of steam and motivations of the main characters were just too much to untangle.

I received a copy of this from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really thought that I would love this book and I have to say that I devoured the first third of it. After Ralph makes his big entrance, though, things went off the rails. Ralph was well done, but the silliness of the bad guys along with the unbelievable actions of the humans in the story just threw me out of the tale. I had to finally give up at 58%, because I couldn't' believe the three main humans in the story, especially the US secretary of defense.

In short, the writing style was excellent, but the character development was so off kilter (not in a good way) that it ruined the story for me.

As a side note, I downloaded both the mobi and epub versions of this book and the formatting was atrocious. Weird line breaks and page breaks and none of the words with double l's only printed one of them.

When an apparent ad for Diet Coke appears on the surface of the moon, the last thing anyone would suspect was that it's part of an alien first contact. When a giant can of Campbell's Soup lands next to the White House lawn a year later, nobody can imagine that it's proof of alien life, just proof that ad guys really are mad. But the alien in who climbs out of the can, and wants to be called "Ralph," has given this a lot of thought, and besides a love for pop culture, he figures this is the best way to contact the US government without the world catching on.

Really, he gave it a lot of thought.

Full Review: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=17855

Drink Diet Coke! The Book of Ralph is an enjoyable, sometimes humorously absurd, first contact story.
The ending was a little darker than I was expecting, but I have been thinking about it since I finished the book. The moral lessons were reminiscent of Stranger in a Strange Land, if it was warped into a clever comedy.