hotj1llypepper 's review for:

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

3.75

lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I have a very low tolerance for the whole "older dude author trying to sound ~hip~ and ~young~ via the narrator" thing, but hank green is like my weird butch aunt who helped me with my science homework in high school, so he basically gets a pass from me. That said, this book is probably about 75% April talking about herself and her narcissism and her experience of fame, versus only like 25% robots from outerspace making humans solve puzzles, and I think if that ratio had been flipped this book could have been phenomenal, but I can see why a man who spent his young adulthood becoming "tier three" famous as a vlogger would write it the way it was written. The 25% of the book that is about alien robot puzzles is super well done. It's a love letter to all the parts of the internet that highlight humanity's inherent need to collaborate: things like wikipedia, and open source codesharing websites (hank never mentions stack overflow/github but thats the vibe). I have high hopes for the sequel, mostly that the protagonist becomes less annoying.