An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
by Hank Green
Published: September 25, 2018 by Dutton/Penguin Random House
Genre/Category: Speculative Fiction
Dates Read: March 27 – 29, 2019
Read For: Book Club and Personal
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5 stars
You know when I close a book and say WOW that I am going to give it 5 stars.
WOW
So I chose this book for the book club I have been running for 6 years now. Most of us don’t really like SciFi or Fantasy, so I wasn’t sure how some of the theme of this one was going to go over, but it had gotten such amazing reviews and I wanted something a little different so I gave it a go. I will be honest, I did get a few that really weren’t blown away by it, but since I’m giving my opinion here, I think its because they just don’t get the whole social media fame thing that seems to be the latest obsession. But hopefully, after I gave them my opinion, they realized how great of a book it was. (Commence eye rolling)
Rather than bore you with a long detailed review, I just want to say I highly recommend this book, for both young and old alike. This book was able to pull the most relevant and pertinent topics of today into one novel and address them in such a unique way that I’ve never seen before. The author was able to include politics, social media, bullying, relationships, maturity/coming of age, radicalism, extremism, fear, uncertainty, fame/fortune and greed, sexuality, family, teamwork, and education, in a story that is so interesting, you won’t want to put it down.
Then there is the SciFi/Fantasy aspect of it with the Carls. This was especially interesting to me because of how it was incorporated into the novel. Some of my counterparts found it odd, even irrelevant, but I did not. The world needed a reason (or the book needed a topic) for everyone to come together, or fall apart, cry outrage, or do whatever they needed to do to show just how society as a whole can/will/or has reacted to the unknown.
I also believe that to get a younger age group to read this book, putting a SciFi/Fantasy twist to it may be just the thing needed to get that demographic, because those are the ones who truly need to get the message being disclosed here. Unfortunately I’m not sure they will.
(Full disclosure – I totally had “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and Twilight Zone “To Serve Man” running though my head while reading this).
Mr Green is truly a genius. (And I’m just talking about his writing ability, I’m not even mentioning the huge amount of stuff he’s done [see back jacket of book]). I’ve been told there is a sequel in the works. That excites me. I am thrilled with the way this ended, I could be happy with just leaving it where it lies, but there is always that part that wants more. If Mr. Green continues to write as well as he did with the first installment, we are really in for a treat.
Highly, HIGHLY recommend.
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