Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

A funny yet gripping story by Hank Green (a family of fantastic & moving writers). The story carried inertia: I found myself unable to put it down the further I got into it.

It did a lot of future hinting but taking you down paths that you didn't expect the story to go.

My interpretation of this story contains an overarching theme as well as one that stood out to me. I feel like this story is a critique of fame/power and the grasp that it oft has on us. A quieter tone is, I feel this story may have some to do about climate change, specifically a problem that we all must work on to solve together. These are more speculation that I had toward the end of the book

Even the Acknowledgements made me feel something.

I'm excited to pick up the sequel.

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cosmicwillow's review

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

i fucking loved this book so much wow. im so mad i waited soooo long to read it because it’s phenomenal. so incredibly human and such a great sci-fi commentary on humanity. truly so much fun to read.

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thesupermassive's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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dreamerfreak's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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aeons_v_atlas's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Delightfully entertaining with thought-provoking commentary on fame. Didn't expect it to have me on the edge of my seat at the end

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meremeth's review

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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kellysavagebooks's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

A massive transformer-esque statue appears in New York. Intrigued, April calls up a friend and they shoot a YouTube video. April wakes up the next morning an internet celebrity and finds herself launched into a world of TV interviews, hateful Internet forums, and—just maybe—first contact?

I put off reading this book for ages for two reasons. One, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, and anything with “contemporary” in the subgenres usually isn’t for me. Two (and this one is stupid), I loved John Green’s books as a teenager, but I’ve completely grown out of them. I’ve adored Hank and John for over like 15 years so I REALLY didn’t want to be disappointed by this book.

And I certainly wasn’t. Hank’s debut is insightful, powerful, funny, and it whisked me right along for the ride. April is wildly unlikeable but still kind of charming and I couldn’t look away. I thought about R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface a lot while I read this. The themes (aside from the racial focus of Yellowface) are very similar. April’s less nasty than June, but she still ends up in the position she’s in because she’s privileged and lucky and little else. The books have similar discussions about online spaces and internet fame. AART, though, leaves you feeling hopeful about the human race, and it wants to point you toward compassion. Yellowface, not so much. Different approaches, and I found I preferred this one.

I’m genuinely shocked by how much I loved this, and I need to get my hands on book 2!

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abbysnofun's review

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Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i mostly liked this book. i was a bit taken out of the story at times because often the characters talk exactly like hank green, which is not necessarily bad but hank green is not a 23 year old girl.

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