Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

24 reviews

kathrynmaggiex's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This is my new favorite book. I can’t stop recommending it to people. If you need to feel some hope about humanity, this is a great read. It’s a perfect combination of interesting (and funny) facts about history and deeply moving personal narrative, with some philosophical analysis thrown in there. I feel like if I read this book enough times, I would eventually come to understand the meaning of life. I listened to the audiobook with the author’s narration — I highly recommend this format, as it’s much more powerful hearing it in John’s voice. I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five stars.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness and Pandemic/Epidemic

cinnamonroll42's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

How ironic it feels to be rating The Anthropocene Reviewed. This book made me laugh out loud, smile, sing, cry, and remember. Reading this book in 2024 brought me back to those early Covid days, desperately trying to maintain my sanity while humanity was aching. I loved the way John couches everything in his own experience while also giving context and information about the subjects he explores, and I especially appreciated the way he openly discussed the impact of colonialism and prejudice in each subject. Listening to John read the audiobook was special, as it felt like a friend telling me stories about their life. I give “The Anthropocene Reviewed” 5 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Pandemic/Epidemic, Colonisation, Medical content, and Racism

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.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Medical content

Minor: Alcohol and Death

a child with severe burns all over was in the ER where John worked as a chaplain. It's not terribly explicit, but he does mention the screaming and agony and helplessness of the parents he wasn't sure how to comfort in the waiting room. Moments like that affected the author enough that he didn't end up going through with divinity school and changes careers. For awhile after that even he believed that the child didn't make it, but he did and he was able to meet with him.

cozy_tea_reader's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

5.0

I really enjoyed this audiobook - I felt like I learned more about the world and about the author and I definitely want to check out more of John Greens Books now!!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Grief

nutmegandselkie's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Grief

Moderate: Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Child death

bmpicc's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This was not what I expected. Full disclosure: I had no idea what Anthropocene even meant which is probably why I ignored this book for so long. Perhaps I feared it was "too smart" for me?

Thank you John Green for helping me slow down. For helping me open my eyes again. For reminding me that it is ok to like, dislike, enjoy, or be nervous about literally anything because my thoughts and feelings are valid too.

This essay collection includes everything. Who knew I could find comfort in an essay about Diet Dr. Pepper, or wisdom hearing his take on Halley's Comet? I didn't realize Green and I are the same age. I felt oddly closer to him when he gave a shout out to a bottle of Strawberry Hill. This book was straight up comfort. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Suicide, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

virgcole398's review against another edition

funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Mental illness, Medical content, Death, and Grief

If you’re an overthinker like me, you’ll love this book

danasaur's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

4.5

Particularly excellent as an audiobook!

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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. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Chronic illness, Cancer, and Animal cruelty

sarahina_b's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

5.0

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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