One morning the world wakes to find dozens of alien spaceships hovering around earth. They hover for a short amount of time and then leave. But the questions of what they were doing and what or who they may have left behind remains, and why are all the cats behaving so weird all of a sudden? This book explores different families dealing with the aftermath of realizing they are not alone in the universe. This sharp and witty Sci-fi story tells an interesting -if somewhat off the wall- story which unfolds in surprising ways. The author weaves together hilarious characters and storylines together into a moving story of interstellar migrants.

If you are a fan of sci-fi or books about aliens, then you need to check this one out! I struggled a bit in the beginning to follow all of the characters, but I was determined to find out what happens, so I pushed through and I'm so glad that I did! I loved all of this, but I especially loved all of the cats. I know that sounds weird what talking about a book about aliens but trust me it is so good. Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I can't wait to see what else this author comes up with!

Thank you, Net Gallery, for the advanced copy of this book. I really enjoyed the story. It started off a little slow but became more fast paced in dealing with feral children, aliens, mind reading cats and road trips. Fun times and a good pool book.

This is one of my favorite reads of the summer so far. Emily Jane has written a sci-fi novel that is both hilarious and heartfelt. I had no idea where she was going with the story at first and even once I figured out what was coming I thoroughly enjoyed the journey. It's like first contact- but make it fun! And touching! I think this is a fantastic debut and I would love to see where Jane's creativity takes her next. Five feline-friendy stars.

This book was sweet, funny, deep and moving. I really was surprised by this book in all the good ways.

On Earth as it is on Television by Emily Jane
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What a fun and wacky book this was!
Imagine one day alien spaceships appeared above large cities across the planet. What would you do? This book explores how several people on the planet reacted, and the long term ramifications these extraterrestrials have on them.
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What I liked:
-Our POVs seemed random but as the story progressed it is made clear that they were precisely chosen to tell the overall story of the spaceships.
-The cats. 🐈🐈‍⬛🐱
-The humor. I chuckled a lot throughout my time with this book.
-I don’t want to give much away but I enjoyed the story’s take on the aliens and their interests.
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I would describe this as fun and almost lighthearted sci-fi. Not heavy, not really science-y. Just an amusing story.
Posted to instagram @staciathebookworm on 6/30/23

<i>Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

<i>On Earth as It Is on Television</i> is, at its core, a novel about love. Yes, it's technically about aliens, but it's mostly about love. Through the lens of a first contact story, this novel really seeks to examine what it means to be human, what about that experience is beautiful and unique, and what it means to love and support each other through unprecedented times. Each POV character embodies this idea perfectly. Blaine, in particular, really captured my heart with the way he is so incredibly in love with and in awe of his wife, and the way he struggles but never stops trying to connect with his two children.

Admittedly, I struggled at times with the shifting narrative POV's and the very stream-of-consciousness style of narration. I usually love stories with multiple POV characters, but I found it difficult to connect fully to each narrative branch. Some, like Blaine's were very well developed -- I didn't specifically count, but it felt like half the novel was from his POV. Others, like Heather, never really grabbed my attention and felt like strange intrusions to the story being told by other characters.

I also expected a much deeper and more profound connection to the idea of television. I kept waiting for the novel to say something really meaningful, but any message I could glean just felt a little shallow and obvious. It's definitely possible that I missed something, but if it was in there then it was easy enough to miss in the first place.

Ultimately, <i>On Earth as It Is on Television</i> is a charming, humorous, and uplifting read. I'll be curious to see what else the author writes in the future, and to see if that style grows on me a little more a few years from now.

This book was about 40% longer than it needed to be. Some of the stories did not mesh well at all and the writing felt muddled at times. The cat memes and lolcat speak was outdated and annoying. No wonder Mr Meow Mitts kept mum. I would have run away too.

Found the ending to be a bit unsatisfying.

3-3.5 stars
This was a super fun read and pretty enjoyable. On Earth as It Is on Television is broken up into three main points of view and how those three characters deal with the aftermath after aliens visit Earth only to disappear shortly after. It was a bit chaotic and sort of had a rambling tendency with excessive use of ellipses. It was a bit hard to follow sometimes because there was a tendency for a lot of characters to be talking at once and it would get a bit hard to follow but it was fun and I enjoyed it!

I liked the concept, characters and overall story. I also really liked the cover and title. The book seemed a bit more YA than I had hoped and that mostly showed up in the dialogue.

If you are looking for something super fun and different, I definitely think you will have a great time with this one. The plot is divided amongst three differing perspectives as an "alien invasion" happens and the population of the United States learns that aliens have lived amongst us for a while. You don't really see how these three perspectives are related until the later half of the novel, but I found each of them to be interesting in their own way. I think the novel had a really strong opening half and my interest in the book sort of wavered in the latter half, but I was still engaged enough to finish the novel. Something that I think I was really needing to enjoy this novel more was to have some sort of philosophical discussions - which the marketing for this book does promise. I think it's sprinkled here and there, but I did not find it really questioned humanity or what it means to share the universe with other life. It focused more on being an uplifting and humorous book, and I think if you go into this knowing that, you will enjoy it more!

I read the blurb and was exciting to dive into this based on that, but this missed the mark. What am I reading? Even ignoring the terrible formatting for the ebook, this is just a big ramble. You are just shoved it 0 to 100 and it just seems like a big acid trip.

A fun read, On Earth as It Is on Television also serves as a guide to rethinking the reality of and navigating a (possibly ongoing) extra-terrestrial visitation. Do we really think we could react as a society to this realization (which may even now be dawning on us), that we're not alone, any better than what we see of ourselves reflected in our social feeds? Will our prejudices and egos extend our bigoted wielding of borders to that of gravity wells and orbital paths on that fateful day (or are they, even now)? Or will we prove ourselves to be the anomaly of history, and rise above our mob judgements and the safety blanket of our fears? Suppose even this writer was not who he seemed, not exactly human (of which he can neither confirm nor deny), and yet also a person of dignity, worth, and enamored with the beauty of life; regardless of any commonality with humanity, would his review of this fascinating book be read in a disparaging or antagonistic light? Or is the dear reader, at this moment, moved with curiosity and openness, seeking to find that connection, that spark, that unites us all, human and otherwise? Said reader may find their time well spent in this book, experiencing not only the joy of a well crafted tale, but also the inspiration to rethink one's own habits of seeing and relating to others not quite like ourselves.

A truly original story of another "what if" story. The synopsis was intriguing enough to draw me in and the tory truly entertaining enough that I found myself finishing the book much too quickly. Different is not quite descriptive enough for this book, but I'm pretty sure you'll not find anything close to it. I enjoyed ON EARTH AS IT IS ON TELEVISION immensely and have already recommended it to my reading circle.

This was a strange and wild read that I overall really enjoyed. It was slow in the beginning, but once some pieces started to fall together and make sense, it went faster. The format was weird with the lack of chapters and instead the “episodes” and different POVs, but this added to my enjoyment not really knowing what was going to come next.

Was this a product placement for Malört? On Earth as It Is on Television is a quirky, borderline absurdist take on first contact with aliens from the perspective—at least so it seems at first—of ordinary, everyday people. Emily Jane asks us to consider what would happen if aliens show up one day and then leave as abruptly as they came. How would life go on, and how would we all be different? Unfortunately, I can’t say I am all that different having read this book.

The story starts thirty years prior, with a brother and his younger sister driving west to escape her abusive boyfriend and start a new life. Following an accident in a winter storm, we smash cut to the present. From there, Jane follows half a dozen different characters. Alien ships appear mysteriously over the skies of major cities around the world (not just Washington, D.C., thankfully), and then after a few days the ships vanish with no contact or explanation. Each of our viewpoint characters struggle to adjust to the new normal, with some of them discovering that there are actually aliens living among them—closer, even, than they initially thought.

This is a quixotic book, and for a while I didn’t know what to make of it. The beginning is like a suspense novel, with each character’s stories developing separately and an implicit promise that they will converge (which, to be fair, they ultimately do). The middle is more like a Vonnegut novel in both style and story. The final act reminds me most of an ’80s children’s movie about aliens, where the danger is undercut by the knowledge that everything will work out in ninety minutes or less.

There’s definitely something good to this novel. I like how Jane explores different yet equally valid reactions to alien arrival, the way that some people just shut down, others go into overdrive. While the humour wasn’t always my cup of tea (those kids were just annoying, OK?), I appreciate Jane’s attempt at establishing such a voice.

I guess what I’m trying to say, however, is that I don’t think the novel made me feel anything. The plot makes sense (in its own weird way). There are emotional notes for each character that Jane hits. But it’s all very perfunctory, very clinical. The narration is so detached, so much telling rather than showing, that it was hard for me to invest myself in any of the characters. I was curious to know the ending, if you will, but I didn’t care about the ending.

On Earth as It Is on Television has its moments, and for a different audience maybe it is in fact uproariously funny. I appreciate the eARC from NetGalley and Hyperion, but this one was not for me.

My review is a little late, but thanks are due to Netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for the ARC of this title.

This was a fun, hopeful little sci-fi romp! It was a very quick, entertaining read about what might happen if alien visitors came to Earth to poke around and explore and how the world as a whole would react and move forward. I really enjoyed the overall story, it's satisfying conclusion, and the cast of characters.

This book answers the question of what would happen if the aliens came and then …just left?

People behave a little more strangely, or in the case of some they were *already* acting strangely and used it as an excuse to start hiding it less.
Cats disappear for a while, have a big gathering, most go back home. But different.
A cationic patient wakes up after an accident a couple decades earlier.

And a whole lot of nothing else
No ‘first contact’
No attack
For the first half of the book I was wondering how much any of it was even about aliens

This one wasn’t what I expected. For one I thought it would be humorous, and when it opened with someone fleeing physical and sexual assault, well, I figured out this wasn’t going to be that.

The writing itself was good, but I think maybe this book just wasn’t for me. The biggest thing is a series of relationship dramas, and most of the time I had trouble getting into them. Eventually a lot more became clear about why each group was important to the story but still - With the only storyline I was *really* invested in being Oliver’s, I spent a lot of the first half of the book wishing it was back to focusing on him. The second half was much weirder, but also much more interesting so I was glad.

[Blurb goes here]

All is as it should be in the world. That is, until the alien ships appear out of nowhere, hovering over various cities. No contact is established, and the ships disappear. What does this mean for humanity? Are we not worthy enough to deserve first contact? Was this just a preamble for things to come? Will they come back? And if they do, are they friends or foes?

These are some of the questions our protagonists ask themselves.

Blaine loves his super-wife. She's out of his league, of that he's certain. She's a lawyer, she bakes the most amazing pastries and always shares them with the neighbors. Of course, she has a few quirks, but who doesn't? Although, after the ships leave, she starts acting strange...stranger than usual. Worst even, Blaine saw her with another man at a time she said she was at work. Is she having an affair?

Heather, an entitled little teen, hates his stepfamily and does not get along with her mom. She finds her privileged life annoying. When the ships arrive, his boyfriend would rather play video games than give her the attention she thinks she deserves. He even has the audacity to leave her alone in her Malibu house to go see the flying saucers. That's the last straw; she brakes up with him.

Oliver, after an accident, has been catatonic for twenty years. Weird, though, after the ships leave, he starts to regain normalcy...but why does he end up following the instructions coming from a telepathic cat?

While the overall story is not very imaginative in the first encounter regard, it's beautifully written and lots of fun. I laughed at the situations our ragtag group of characters found themselves in, especially at Blain's kid's crazy antics. Those two are a jewell.

It has spaceships and aliens, but it's more fantasy than sci-fi. I'm certain that you will enjoy the ride as much as I did.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

This story was weird. It was hard to follow until about halfway when you finally learned enough about each character to get a grip on the story. But it was still just sort of a bizarre and creative story. I enjoyed it but still have so many questions.