Humor is at the core of this middle-school-targeted novel about invading aliens. Gratuity Tucci, called Tip by all her friends, is growing up with her mother in New Jersey when the Boov arrive. Her mother is targeted to be a language teacher for the aliens as they arrive just in time for Christmas Day. The holiday is renamed Smekday in honor of Captain Smek, who led the invasion.

The Boov have decided humans take up too much space and sign agreements with all the countries of the world to basically set up reservations where all of the human citizens can be moved to. The United States is assigned Florida. With her mother gone, Tip decides to take the family car and drive down on her own rather than use the official transport provided by the Boov, which reminds her a little bit too much of what was done to the Jews during the Holocaust.

She quickly runs into trouble when she crosses the border into Pennsylvania, but finds surprising help in the form of J.Lo. No, not the singer-turned-actress, but a Boov who has run into a little trouble of his own with his people. He helps spoof up Tip's car, and they find themselves kicking off on an adventure that brings them to Florida and beyond. They quickly find a friendship developing as they face a series of dangerous situation and meet no shortage of interesting people.

The novel draws strongly from Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, but is constructed in a way that makes that type of tale accessible to younger readers. The comparison to the latter author is particularly appropriate since Rex repeatedly makes comparisons between the actions of the Boov (and another race of aliens that reinvades Earth) to how the Europeans/Americans treated Native Americans upon finding the New World and settling it. This is particularly true with the character called Chief, whom Tip and J.Lo meet when they reach Arizona. Beyond that, the parallels are still evident.

My only complaint is that the book is simply too long. It is totally funny and the author does a great job satirizing Disney World, which has taken on an alternate form with Happy Mouse Kingdom. Each character met along this bizarre road trip is nicely developed and humorous, but I just felt there could have been a little bit less to the story. The story still could have been complete.

I also struggled a bit because the 400+ page book has only 3 chapters, two of which are 150 pages or longer. I like to have more chapter breaks because it makes it easier to find a logical place to pause. That is just nitpicking, though. This really is a fun read. It is also one of the few science fiction novels that I know of that has an African American (or any other person of color) as a protagonist.