“The Answer is 17” by Julia Ash

The Answer is 17

Julia Ash
Independently Published (2026)
ISBN:  979-8996017447
Reviewed by Terri Stepek for Reader Views (07/2026)

I love finding teen/young adult fiction that is so well written that the parents are going to be stealing it from their kids.  Like The Hunger Games, or Divergent.  Stories so rich, so amazingly developed that readers of nearly any age will gravitate towards them.  Well, meet Addie.  She’s a 17-year-old enjoying the summer before her senior year at the lake house with her parents.  Her dad has an uber-cool job working for AATIP, the government agency seeking the truth about UAPs (known to us old folks as UFOs).  His work has made him kind of a prepper, having created a bunker at the lake home—just in case.

In Julia Ash’s The Answer is 17, it’s finally happened.  The aliens have invaded, and they’re not here to make friends.  But Addie’s got a head start on the survival thing.  Between the family bunker and her freaky total recall ability, she’s ahead of the curve.  When she finds herself alone with just her dog Gibson in a bunker where systems are failing and food is gone, Addie knows she’s going to have to strike out for a safer place.

The world-building in this post-apocalyptic nightmare is well done.  We know why the aliens are here and what they’re doing shortly after Addie ventures outside the bunker. These tall, gray aliens, nicknamed Nubees, are easy to visualize based on Ash’s vivid description:

…the aliens had heads similar to the Egyptian god Anubis.  In other words, resembling hairless canines.  Dogs.  Figures the faces of Earth’s invaders were in the image of humankind’s best friend.

The real freakshow was that the aliens also had two pairs of translucent wings similar to a bee’s.  Their wings could move so fast during flight that the human eye couldn’t see them.  Worse, as their wings oscillated and swiveled, they buzzed as loud as chainsaws.

Mash up Anubis and bees, and presto!  Nubees.  Cleverly cutesy.

The author has also presented us with superb characters.  From Addie, who is brilliant yet socially inept (she’s the class “victim”), to Sawyer, an Olympic swimmer with charisma who dedicated every waking moment to a sport that will no longer exist.  Both of them are wonderfully complex and attempting to adapt on the fly.  The ancillary characters are equally well done, from the loyal Gibson to the treacherous humans who only look out for themselves.

Speaking of Gibson (the family dog), one of the things that makes this story so much fun is that it’s told from two angles.  The main portion of the story is told in the third person with glimpses into Addie’s self-destructive inner monologue.  But every other chapter is told through the POV of Gibson, who follows the Golden Rule (of dogs):  always protect your human.  He refers to Addie as his sister, since he’s part of the family and all.  Gibson’s take on humanity, the aliens, and the intricacies of dog society gives us some terrific comic breaks.

He was bold, I’d give Sawyer that.  Little did he know, what my sister lacked in physical resistance, she made up for with her weaponized tongue.  No one stood a chance against her verbal warfare.  Addie was special ops, for sure, with too many kills to count.

Gibson’s take on the canine ritual of butt-sniffing is priceless and not to be missed.  I’m not going to spill it here because it’s that good.

Watching the main characters grow as they navigate a world they couldn’t have been prepared for is a delight.  Addie starts out seeing herself as a victim.  She’s used to being bullied and has the unfortunate tendency to fall into the third category of survival:  not fight, not flight, but freeze.  She views herself as a cuttlefish (another awesome dialogue), who sees her best option as camouflage until the threat is gone.  Sawyer is direct, bold, and used to people listening to him.  He reacts to Addie’s self-defensive verbal attacks with some equally vicious barbs.  But as they hone their survival skills and, by necessity, their communication skills, they each become more aware of better ways to handle certain events.  That’s great, because it turns out the world needs Addie to use her amazing AI-style brain to save it right now.

Thoughtful yet fun characterizations and a well-plotted storyline traveling at the speed of “run-for-your-lives” combined with a canine perspective and brazenly snarky wit:  what more could you ask?  This story has it all, from suspense to sci-fi, coming-of-age to canine attitude.  I could even say there’s some hard science (in sci-fi terms) involved here, as Addie attempts to save the world in a style reminiscent of War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks.  Yeah, good luck figuring out what those two films have in common…

I absolutely wholeheartedly recommend The Answer is 17 by Julia Ash for teens/young adults and up who enjoy thrillers, suspense, sci-fi, alien attacks, snarky humor, and the occasional butt-sniffing reference.  Please be aware that descriptions can be a little graphic at times—hey, it’s the end of the world.  There is also some cursing in the dialogue, something I usually oppose in teen reads, but I’m going to reference that “end of the world” comment above.  If a little gore, a little blue language, and some canine references to impolite topics don’t offend you, I suggest you grab this book!