Reviews tagging 'Biphobia'

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green

12 reviews

bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
  •  speculative science fiction
  • set in New York City
  • follows main character 23-year-old messy bisexual April as she takes a video of a “Carl,” a 10-foot Transformer wearing samurai armory, and then goes viral
  • more Carls pop up all over the world and people begin having similar dreams, which they decode together
  • April navigates viral global fame and figures out her relationships along the way
  • cw: violence, death, biphobia
  • 2nd book picks up a few months after the 1st & April’s friends (Maya, Andy, Miranda) find clues about April’s current status
  • Audiobook has a conversation wth the author (that is allegedly not in the printed version!) 
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arlingtonchamberofgay's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative tense medium-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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readandfindout's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 5 stars
Characters: 3.5 stars
Plot: 5 stars
Worldbuilding: 4 stars
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anniereads221's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-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

5.0

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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-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

4.0

i really enjoyed this book, mostly because i am a lefty haha. i definitely had forgotten everything that had happened in the first book but thankfully the book explains the previous events in enough detail to get the general picture. 

i liked the plot and the different characters, i enjoyed most of the social commentary, however, at times it was quite on the nose. 
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limiwh's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-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

5.0

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adelal's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful reflective medium-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

4.5

maybe I do believe there’s still hope for humanity
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ajnagle's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious slow-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? It's complicated

3.75

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analugrace's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-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

5.0

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bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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  • 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

4.5

 This is a really good book. It's better than the first one in a lot of ways. I also liked it slightly less. 
 
I loved the use of multiple points of view, especially because April was such a specific type of narrator in the first book. April is also a lot less interesting now that she's marked as even more specialTM. Maya, Miranda, and Andy are more compelling characters who have a lot to offer the story as narrators. However, none of their stories would have been capable of carrying a whole book, which is why it's so great that we got all of them.

While the first book was largely about internet fame, this one is mostly about the future of the internet and the possibilities of virtual reality and other technologies, especially the darker implications of the corporate internet and the influence it has over our lives. 

There were a lot of interesting musings about the internet and technology and fame from all of the characters, and most of them were super compelling. Miranda's chapters were definitely my favorite because of her specific outlook on the whole thing (and I like the book a lot less when we lost Miranda's point of view for a while for plot reasons), though Maya is my favorite character and I think that Andy had the most compelling character arc.

My main problem with this book is Carl. In book one, I enjoyed the science fiction of it all, and I was excited to learn more about Carl. Maybe I shouldn't have been because I feel like all of the alien elements were simultaneously under-developed and over-explained. Some of Carl's monologuing kind of felt like Hank Green trying to justify his own narrative choices in the first book, and I didn't feel like that was necessary.

In the first book, it felt like April was just at the right place at the right time, and in this one, we learn that she was actually chosen much more deliberately by Carl. This ultimately isn't all that different from an algorithm seemingly randomly choosing certain people to become internet famous, but it definitely contributed to April and Carl being the least compelling characters in this book for me.

Also, one more spoilery note about Carl:
Since Carl doesn't actually make it to the end of the book, I didn't really like that they were a narrator. I know that there was an explanation for where all of their chapters came from and it wasn't actually an issue in-universe, but it still bothered me.


I did really enjoy this book on the whole, though, so here are some more random things I enjoyed:
  • Carl is officially nonbinary now and it's not because they're an alien. They just are. 
  • I loved Maya and Miranda's conversations about sexuality. Really well done.
  • In general this book is much gayer than the first one and I always appreciate that.
  • April hates John Mayer.
  • SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION!
  • The audiobook is excellent. Great use of multiple narrators, and all of the voice actors were perfect for their characters.

These books are more of their moment than almost anything else I've ever read. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing feels like an alternate version of 2020, which can't have been deliberate because it was published in 2019. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, however, knows that it's a pandemic book. It's specifically a book about post-pandemic life and readjusting to a world that has been changed and wants to pretend that it hasn't been. It'll be interesting to see how it ages.
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