"Allen's concise book's power lies within its understated irony, never more heavy-handed than a preacher's admonition that 'a world without mans is a world without us all.' The plain narrative and relationship between boy and female man, rounded out with humor and occasional (sometimes literal) bite, promises to be a sleeper favorite among speculative audiences."

-Publishers Weekly

"Allen...throws caution to the wind with his bizarre but exquisitely composed fable that uses transhumanism as the prism to reflect on the nature of humanity...It's also intellectually curious and rather cutting in many of its conceptual and cultural assessments. It's a world where man is not only pet, but also meat, where religion, wars and empires are just as backward as they are in our own world, and where worlds collide with a temperamental angst that is as uncomfortable as it is alluring. Much like Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel Planet of the Apes, this novel is a sardonic parable on the nature and destiny of the species. A nimble fable whose bold narrative experiment is elevated by its near-biblical language and affectionate embrace of our inherent flaws."

-Kirkus Reviews

"Imaginative, versatile, and daring Allen (Jesus Boy, 2010) raids the realms of myth and fairy tales in this topsy-turvy speculative fable . . . With canny improvisations on 'Jack and the Beanstalk, ' the 'Epic of Gilgamesh, ' and Alice in Wonderland, Allen sharpens our perceptions of class divides, racism, enslavement, and abrupt and devastating climate change to create a delectably adventurous, wily, funny, and wise cautionary parable."

-Booklist

"In Every Boy Should Have a Man, Allen takes genre bending into unexplored territory. He has crafted a highly imaginative, unsettling work of social satire that . . . utilizes a speculative fable as a way to muse on race, slavery, civil rights and even climate change. . . Every Boy Should Have a Man is James Baldwin meets Aldous Huxley, a twisted contortion of a weird fairy tale future gone wrong, all told from high atop the mountain in a sort of New Testament prose. As the mixologist of this mad and unpredictable genre tableau, Allen has navigated into wholly uncharted territory. He comments on everything from slave ownership to pet ownership to the way we treat our planet and ourselves. His novel is ambitious yet understated, cautionary while rarely politically preachy. Every Boy Should Have a Man is that rare novel that is derived from such a disparate scope of literary influences that it waxes entirely original."

-Chicago Tribune

"Every Boy Should Have a Man presents an eye-opening and beautifully rendered post-apocalyptic parable."

-Colorado Springs Independent

"Grade: A

Where humans have dogs, oafs have mans. But in Allen's provocative parable, mans are far cleverer than dogs . . . Like all parables, there's a message here. We need to pay attention to our environment and to those Bangladeshi clothesmakers who do work for us."

-Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The story's blend of influences and themes make the book as a whole fascinating and thought-provoking."

-BookTrib.com

"There's no doubt this is an original story and one you should read."

-Book Sp(l)ot Reviews

"In this new novel, Preston L. Allen writes with an elegance and honesty that makes his observations on 'humanity'-our common flaws, our insistent dishonesty, our daily failings-a psalm, a love song to imperfection, and yet holds onto a firm and astute insight. Beautiful, elegiac, and optimistic."

-Chris Abani, author of Graceland