Reviews with content warning for Addiction - A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

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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samchase112's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

People will just share the things that confirm their ideology, and those things will always exist. Our reality isn't about what's real, it's about what we pay attention to.

This is not a book about aliens or science --- it's a book about community, power, compassion, and how humanity uses and abuses the tools we have created in order to manipulate those things. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is deeply weird, yet profoundly true. I want to go back and highlight about 65% of Hank's words. It is obvious this is all coming from a place of caring and social media/celebrity experience; as well as the human experience we can all relate to. I cannot recommend this book and its insanely relevant messages enough.

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livreads54's review against another edition

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adventurous funny 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? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

kitkat_kate'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

Content Warnings

scruffie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative 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

4.5

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theoldestbennetsister's review against another edition

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funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

What an absolute fucking ride. Thank you Hank for this story.

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marahc's review against another edition

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funny hopeful informative reflective fast-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

5.0

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laurenwerlinger's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book feels exactly like it was written by Hank Green, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. His unique perspectives and experiences make for a book nothing like anything I've read before.

I've found that usually, sequels don't live up to their predecessors, but in this case, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor was better than An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. I think this is mostly due to the fact that we get a few different POVs. While I'm not usually a fan of switching between the perspectives of different characters, it was done so well here.

On top of that, Hank Green's wisdom and observations are so smart, meaningful, and comforting. This is exactly how I want my sci-fi to be written.

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