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jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
This book is an enigmatic ode to life in the form of essays written by famed author John Green. They consider the Anthropocene which is the current geological age (for example your Anthropocene is whatever you live through).
These essays are incredibly moving at points, they can make you laugh and cry as well as provide fun snippets of information you never knew. Throughout them all John often references back to his personal experiences with his mental health which is incredibly written and moving to those who can relate.
As a burns victim myself one which stuck with me was “googling strangers” which circles around his time as a chaplain in a hospital when a young burns victim came in. He lived years not knowing this kids fate but eventually googled him and was relieved to see the child survived and grew up to live a fulfilling life and as a victim of similar injuries it was moving to see someone similar mentioned and written not as inspiration porn but to show progress and growth despite barriers you may face.
Overall I was suprised how much I loved this book and will definitely return to it in future.
These essays are incredibly moving at points, they can make you laugh and cry as well as provide fun snippets of information you never knew. Throughout them all John often references back to his personal experiences with his mental health which is incredibly written and moving to those who can relate.
As a burns victim myself one which stuck with me was “googling strangers” which circles around his time as a chaplain in a hospital when a young burns victim came in. He lived years not knowing this kids fate but eventually googled him and was relieved to see the child survived and grew up to live a fulfilling life and as a victim of similar injuries it was moving to see someone similar mentioned and written not as inspiration porn but to show progress and growth despite barriers you may face.
Overall I was suprised how much I loved this book and will definitely return to it in future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Vomit, Mental illness, Cancer, and War
hollydyer328's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
I have read (and enjoyed) Turtles All the Way Down, and coming to John Green’s nonfiction in these essays definitely helped me understand where the protagonist with her obsessive thoughts came from.
Of the 49 essays that are in the audiobook, I genuinely enjoyed 3 of them and was surprised by another 3. For the rest of the time, it felt like random musings and wanderings in Green’s head. He writes about a wide spectrum of disparate topics, tells the historical context, and ties it to some aspect of the human experience that is usually pretty disturbing and depressing. Especially in the audiobook, his anxiety and despair about the human situation comes out in most of the essays. There were few essays that reflected on the high points of the human experience, and a lot of the essays went dark in unexpected ways that would lead to despair with no solution. Basically I felt like I was inside his anxious brain for 11 hours and it makes me wonder how he even handles his own brain.
Generally, this book was too long and felt all over the place—if it was shorter with a more selective choice of essays that related to each other in a more explicit way, maybe it would have been more enjoyable.
Of the 49 essays that are in the audiobook, I genuinely enjoyed 3 of them and was surprised by another 3. For the rest of the time, it felt like random musings and wanderings in Green’s head. He writes about a wide spectrum of disparate topics, tells the historical context, and ties it to some aspect of the human experience that is usually pretty disturbing and depressing. Especially in the audiobook, his anxiety and despair about the human situation comes out in most of the essays. There were few essays that reflected on the high points of the human experience, and a lot of the essays went dark in unexpected ways that would lead to despair with no solution. Basically I felt like I was inside his anxious brain for 11 hours and it makes me wonder how he even handles his own brain.
Generally, this book was too long and felt all over the place—if it was shorter with a more selective choice of essays that related to each other in a more explicit way, maybe it would have been more enjoyable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Death
rallsley's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.75
This is my first John Green book experience, but not my first experience of him. My first experience involve my boyfriend introducing me to VlogBrothers when talking about fond pre-college memories. I have since married this boyfriend and in turn he successfully made me a Nerdfighter. But I was still a jock at heart and reading was still off the table until this year when, as Green puts it, my entire life turned into a "What's the Point?" game.
Read this if you want to learn about the author, the man who has been present since before YouTube and now emerging from the "post" Covid-19 pandemic world. Be enlightened with new ways to describe the fuzzy static that happens during a panic attack with the familiar prose of a John Green video (probably the books too but again, haven't read them. Yet)
Only losing 0.25 because I' m mad i didnt think of this memoir format first, I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 4.75 stars.
Read this if you want to learn about the author, the man who has been present since before YouTube and now emerging from the "post" Covid-19 pandemic world. Be enlightened with new ways to describe the fuzzy static that happens during a panic attack with the familiar prose of a John Green video (probably the books too but again, haven't read them. Yet)
Only losing 0.25 because I' m mad i didnt think of this memoir format first, I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 4.75 stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Medical content
Minor: Alcohol and Death
virgcole398's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Mental illness, Medical content, Death, and Grief
If you’re an overthinker like me, you’ll love this bookdanasaur's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Particularly excellent as an audiobook!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, and Mental illness
Moderate: Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Alcohol, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Alcohol, Cancer, Vomit, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Drug use, and Death
lia_mills's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
"The Anthropocene Reviewed"
Method: audiobook by the author
One thing about me is: I love a theme. Themed events, themed locations, themed decor: give me something with a clearly-stated uniting category attached to it and I will be happy. And never more so than when it comes to collections of writings - be they essays, poems, short stories, letters, what have you - give me a clear overarching connection and I will be happy.
As themes go, "The Anthropocene" is broad enough to potentially be self-defeating. If it could be anything about human life (which in a piece of media made for humans essentially means 'anything at all', since everything we communicate about will always come back to us), what's the point in having a theme at all? Maybe that's me being too simplistic, but honestly the broadness of this theme does brush against the reason why I love them so much - I like being able to categorise things, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) to compartmentalise them, and a theme like this doesn't really allow for that sort of thing.
But my own personal taste in theming aside, I freaking loved this book. From the opening review of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical 'Carousel' - a song I also have a personal connection to, with my very first time performing in a stage show having been as one of the Snow children who appears onstage during this song, in an experience which helped spark the love of theatre that has had such a profound influence on my life - I was hooked. My favourite reviews are the ones on the 1950 drama film "Harvey" (which serves as a deeply personal and empathy-facilitating explorarion of Green's experience with depression) and on the folk song "Auld Lang Syne" (which serves as a beautiful tribute to the work of his departed friend and mentor Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and has given me a variation on the song to sing which I will remember for the rest of my life). This book has so many interesting, at times hilarious and at times profound reviews in here that are well worth reading - it's just that I love these two most, in equal measure.
One of my favourite things about art is how it begets more art - both from a creative perspective (artists, writers, musicians, etc. being inspired by those who came before them and by their contemporaries), and from an audience perspective (one of my favourite examples of this is finding music for the first time through great needledrops in film and television). And to me, this book is at its best when it highlights some of the beautiful and strange and intriguing things that humans have created. I personally lean more towards the artistic ones, but the exploration of some of the more pragmatic human creations, such as vaccines, is also excellent - informative and evocative, in equal measure.
And this book does what so many of the books I deeply love do - it makes me want to write more, and it makes me want to participate more in the world. It makes me want both, in equal measure.
I give "The Anthropocene Rewiewed" four and a half stars.
Method: audiobook by the author
One thing about me is: I love a theme. Themed events, themed locations, themed decor: give me something with a clearly-stated uniting category attached to it and I will be happy. And never more so than when it comes to collections of writings - be they essays, poems, short stories, letters, what have you - give me a clear overarching connection and I will be happy.
As themes go, "The Anthropocene" is broad enough to potentially be self-defeating. If it could be anything about human life (which in a piece of media made for humans essentially means 'anything at all', since everything we communicate about will always come back to us), what's the point in having a theme at all? Maybe that's me being too simplistic, but honestly the broadness of this theme does brush against the reason why I love them so much - I like being able to categorise things, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) to compartmentalise them, and a theme like this doesn't really allow for that sort of thing.
But my own personal taste in theming aside, I freaking loved this book. From the opening review of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical 'Carousel' - a song I also have a personal connection to, with my very first time performing in a stage show having been as one of the Snow children who appears onstage during this song, in an experience which helped spark the love of theatre that has had such a profound influence on my life - I was hooked. My favourite reviews are the ones on the 1950 drama film "Harvey" (which serves as a deeply personal and empathy-facilitating explorarion of Green's experience with depression) and on the folk song "Auld Lang Syne" (which serves as a beautiful tribute to the work of his departed friend and mentor Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and has given me a variation on the song to sing which I will remember for the rest of my life). This book has so many interesting, at times hilarious and at times profound reviews in here that are well worth reading - it's just that I love these two most, in equal measure.
One of my favourite things about art is how it begets more art - both from a creative perspective (artists, writers, musicians, etc. being inspired by those who came before them and by their contemporaries), and from an audience perspective (one of my favourite examples of this is finding music for the first time through great needledrops in film and television). And to me, this book is at its best when it highlights some of the beautiful and strange and intriguing things that humans have created. I personally lean more towards the artistic ones, but the exploration of some of the more pragmatic human creations, such as vaccines, is also excellent - informative and evocative, in equal measure.
And this book does what so many of the books I deeply love do - it makes me want to write more, and it makes me want to participate more in the world. It makes me want both, in equal measure.
I give "The Anthropocene Rewiewed" four and a half stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Chronic illness, Cancer, and Animal cruelty
limiwh's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Mental illness
cryptofauna's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
holy shit.
laugh out loud funny but also reverent, emotional and touching. the depth of human experience that green shows in this book is mind boggling and insane. both deeply relatable and such a wonderful picture into a very different mind and world. came out of this one feeling so different about the universe.
I rate the Anthropocene Reviewed five stars.
laugh out loud funny but also reverent, emotional and touching. the depth of human experience that green shows in this book is mind boggling and insane. both deeply relatable and such a wonderful picture into a very different mind and world. came out of this one feeling so different about the universe.
I rate the Anthropocene Reviewed five stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness and Death
sarahina_b's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexism, Emotional abuse, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Animal death, Medical content, Grief, Xenophobia, and Suicidal thoughts
grace33's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, and Death
Moderate: Child death and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Cancer