An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Hank Green
Overall: 3/5
Plot and themes: 4/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing style: 3/5
Attention-grabbing: 3/5
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is Hank Green's debut novel, and despite this book's 2018 release date (and maybe I'm projecting my expectations) but it definitely took me back to 2012. Carl is street art that April May stumbles upon late one night, and as the discoverer and YouTube originator she gains a certain amount of fame. But then they figure out that there's a lot more to Carl than street art and bam it's no longer contemporary it's science fiction and nothing is making sense and they have the course of a book to try to figure it out.
Starting with the negatives: April May is a horrible person. I really disliked her from start to finish. She isn't loyal to her friends and definitely not to her girlfriend or any of her love interests. She complains constantly about undiagnosed psychological issues that are preventing her from doing so but frankly she just seems like the kind of person who is very much used to instant gratification. She's not a celebrity persona but she can handle paparazzi and interviews like a champ. Despite giving us a detailed commentary on why she can do so and how this is destroying her, we don't really see that playing out in live time. We're just told why she's being exploited and I didn't really feel it on the page.
The best parts of the book occurred in the final 20 percent- the first 80 percent was pretty boring. I was like I don't even know this is a one star read until we got to the action of the ending and heard some more about what the Carls actually were. I think that Hank Green did a good job of keeping us interested while giving us nearly no information on them. The Carls were much better characters than April May was, because again she was complete trash.
I think I'll probably read the sequel because like I said, there's so much still on the table even without considering the huge cliffhanger which the book ended on. It wasn't my favorite read ever but it definitely had a lot going on it (in that last 20 percent exclusively).
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