wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

2.75

Formatting would have benefited greatly with the use of footnotes, which in turn would have helped with pacing and flow.

I found myself reading an essay or two about topics I had varying levels of interest in, and on to the next essay I would read the title and often put the book down because I had had enough of the meandering stream of consciousness associations for that session.

There were some things that I found value in, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea.

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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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alienem's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Just wonderful

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mandaraffe's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

5.0


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caseythereader's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

 - Honestly, who gave John Green the right? Who let him make me experience the fullness of the human condition via audiobook?
- So many essays in this book had me thinking, oh this will be silly. Rating the Disney Hall of Presidents? This will be a laugh. Yes, but then he'll take a roundabout through a seemingly unrelated anecdote and suddenly you're crying while commuting to work.
- I do think a lot of the power of this book comes from the fact that Green wrote much of it during the early stages of the pandemic, and he frequently references that in the text. But it also adds more layers to the essays, helping to bring our current moment into the context of the whole of human history (whether or not that makes you feel better about the state of things...I'm not sure).
- I do recommend the audiobook for this, as Green puts so much emotion into his reading. Plus, you must hear the call of the extinct bird included in one of the essays. I hear the print version has additional notes, though, so I'll be checking that out as well. 

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