Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

For starters I would totally give this book 5 stars (and I may change my mind) but the reason I didn't was because how genuinely tense this book made me feel. I was worried about April's fall to fame and her social and parasocial relationships and political repercussions.
The first few pages of the book made me roll my eyes a bit in a jovial way. Oh you wiley Hank Green and you're Mc named APRIL MAY whose a funky art major bisexual who finds a samurai type mech and becomes a social media star! What a little fun idea! Guess I don't really need to read the sequel....I got the point. Alright! And then....it just kept accumulating and building between consequences of actions on other people's lives, her life, politics, and just Twitter related angst. It became a riveting conversation about the determinants of fame and false leadership and so much more but also the glories and goodness of trying to be a better person and how the internet can raise people together. And now I'm desperate for the sequel.
April feels a little bit of a good-hearted yet still selfish cousin to Dorian Grey (which I love).

Also yes this book is wacky but roll with it

I did but cw for violence because there is violent attacks in the book but not much is "on screen" and when the significant one happens there's a warning that proceeds it. Well done!

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itsheyfay's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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bessadams's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense 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

4.25

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Damn there were some hard-hitting truths cooked into the story in this one. I saw a negative review of this book that criticized that the “alien book” wasn’t about aliens, and I have to wonder how someone can so entirely lack reading comprehension. As most alien books are, at their core, this book was about humans, in all their wonderful fucked up glory. It was about social media and how, like humans, there are two sides to that coin. It’s about fame and what it makes people do. And it’s about April, who is seriously seriously flawed. Just like everyone else.

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arieloley's review

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adventurous emotional funny informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Just really well written and relatable. It’s so hard to find male writers that accurately depict a non-male protagonist, but Green did a great job and focused on the humanity of April vs her gender or anything irrelevant.

I loved that I couldn’t predict any step, everything felt new and original. Loved the casual LGBTQ+ representation, loved the twists and turns, loved how much I learned even from a fictional novel.

I’m genuinely excited to read the next one.

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lilifane's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Ah, this is difficult. I should have loved this. I wanted to love this so much. But unfortunately, I didn't. I did love the middle part with the puzzle, I basically flew through that. But the first 40% were really hard to get through and although the second half got better, I didn't feel much. I think this was my biggest issue with the book. I really liked the premise, the topics discussed here, the bi representation. I liked how media and the life of a person who suddenly becomes famous is depicted. And I understand that the protagonist is an unlikable character on purpose. I even liked that she had flaws and made mistakes (even though I got annoyed when she didn't learn from them at all). But at the same time she has issues with feelings and shuts them out completely, so I really had trouble to care for her story and her cause. Because I didn't feel anything. I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it either, so my rating is somewhere in the middle.

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