spacekee's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective

4.0


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abigailbat's review

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced
I read this for Jacob’s book group at the library and was so glad to have an excuse to finally pick it up and read it. In a series of very short essays, John Green examines and “reviews” items and events from the Anthropocene (from the epoch of human life on earth). From Canada geese to the Lascaux cave paintings to scratch & sniff stickers to wintry mix, the topics are a wide, eclectic range. And through these musings, Green reflects on his own life and his own place in the world and our place as a human species interacting with the world. A few essays made me cry, a few made me laugh, and I’m excited to see which essays stuck out to everyone else because I bet they are all different. 

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brookey8888's review

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.25

I really enjoyed this! I learned a lot and some of these essays made me emotional which shocked me. I’m not going to lie some of this went over my head, but overall it was easy to follow and understand. There’s a lot of humor in this, but a lot of seriousness as well. It really made me think of all the little things in the world as well as the big things. 

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iang186's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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totallybookedforlife's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.5


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youngwessels's review

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hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.5


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takarakei's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

THE AUDIOBOOK! John narrates it himself (I find his voice so soothing) & one of my favorite essays was an audio exclusive. I just described this book to someone as a 'pop culture' book, but I think that does it a great disservice. This book is just so much more than that. I actually have not read any of John Green's novels (yet), but I have been following him and his brother Hank (read The Carls!) for a couple years, so I knew going in that John has a way with words. You may flip through the table of contents to read the titles of the essays and think this book sounds rather ordinary, but John is able to take even the most seemingly mundane topics and weave beautiful connections to (the often brutal) humanity. There were several times when I was misty eyed.

I give John Green's book 5 stars.

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mopare's review

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challenging hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.0


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illgiveyouahint's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō  story made me bawl my eyes out. I think I'm gonna have to buy the physical copy so that I can reread it at some point and highlight favourite passages. But also I think it's great to hear an audiobook of a book of essay by the author himself. With fiction it can feel weird since they're narrating their characters but with essays they're narrating their own thoughts which I think is nice. 

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jaychayka7777's review against another edition

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funny informative relaxing slow-paced

4.0

My favourite essays were Scratch 'n' Sniff Stickers, Humanity's Temporal Range, Velociraptors, Teddy Bears, Sunsets, The Indianapolis 500, Viral Meningitis, and "New Partner"

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