Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - Hank Green

So, I know this book had a lot of hype around it considering it's Hank Green's first novel and he and his brother (best-selling author John Green, as I'm sure you know) are popular vloggers and podcasters and human beings. As far as I know, there were no advanced reader copies for the bloggers, 'grammers, and YouTubers of the world...everyone had to wait to get their own copy. I wasn't initially interested in reading this, but when I saw it was an option on Book of the Month for October, I figured I'd give it a shot.




Summary

"The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship--like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor--April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world--everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. 

Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us." (Goodreads)

Thoughts

Let's start with April May. She is a pretty unlikeable character, and she makes the reader aware that she knows this right away. In terms of how she reacts to her sudden fame, her behavior is (slightly) understandable. Her circumstances are pretty extreme. Her face has become synonymous with the Carls, her voice is the voice of something people are having a hard time understanding. She is thrust into the spotlight in a matter of hours and expected to speak on various news outlets and talk shows about something she doesn't know much about.

It's not just the fame that makes her unlikeable, though. She is, even before this occurs, a self-sabotager. She actively avoids making serious decisions in her personal relationships and is quite self-centered. The fame only amplifies this behavior.

The book focuses heavily on fame, particularly in the social media-obsessed world of today, something that Hank Green is certainly aware of in a way that so many people aren't. The YouTube following he has with his brother has created opportunities for him that he maybe wouldn't have had otherwise. There is a sense of control when you're creating content, and that's reflected in April May's behavior. She is controlling the narrative, portraying herself on the positive side of the Carls arriving. With her positivity comes the inevitable negativity, two sides fighting when it is extremely likely that the Carls are trying to get the world to work together to figure out why they're there in the first place. 

There's a lot going on in this book. Obviously, we are following April May's narrative as she recalls every moment she has experienced since the arrival of the Carls. But the Carls provide a more complex element to the story in the form of an infectious dream that people start to have all over the world. The dream has a series of sequences, puzzles that need to be solved to unlock the next parts. There is a lot of talk of hexagonal numbers and elements and code and...okay, it doesn't get too specific, but if sci-fi stuff isn't your thing, you might be a little confused (I was). I never felt like the book was over my head, necessarily, but it did require a little extra brain power.

The book is pretty open-ended, and I didn't know how I felt about that until I found out that there is a sequel coming out. This very much felt like a debut novel but the strength of the story was there and I do feel that it got better as the book went on. Considering I wasn't initially planning on reading this, I'm pretty excited to see where the story will go from here.

Rating


I had a hard time deciding on my rating for this book. Though it had its strengths, I found the weaknesses too much to completely ignore. It's totally understandable considering the depth within the novel. As I mentioned above, it very much reads like a debut novel. There are improvements to be made, but I think Green is up to the task and has created a really interesting sci-fi/contemporary about humanity, fame, and the possibility of
 extra-terrestrial lifeforms.





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