“You can only do so much pretending before you become the thing you’re pretending to be.” – p71
Title: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Author: Hank Green
Series(?): The first (I think it will be a duology)
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Page Count: 352
Rating: 4.5/5*
Synopsis (From Goodreads): The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world–everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires–and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.
Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us
**Post Contains Spoilers**
“Even on this most terrible of days, even when the worst of us are all we can think of, I am proud to be a human.” – p275
HANK IS AN AMAZING AUTHOR
I enjoyed this book so much! I went into it not quite sure how I was going to feel about it considering that Hank had never written a book, so I couldn’t really go in with any expectations. Because of that I used John Green’s, his brother, writing as that sort of baseline, as I am sure a lot of people did. But I was completely blown away by Hank’s writing! His writing style is completely different from John’s and I feel as if when others talk about An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (AART), they often compare it to John’s writing, which honestly feels wrong to me.
I love the way that he wrote April’s voice. It really came through and made it feel even more realistic in a way that April’s character had a lot of depth and her personality was very unique. She was very distinct from the start and felt like a very well developed character.
Something that has come up so many times to the point where I feel the need to address it is the all caps. A lot of people didn’t like that some of the words were in all caps, but I actually enjoyed it. I personally thought that it helped the book flow better and put emphasis on what was important, making what was really important stand out. It also was also really in the first few chapters or so, so I don’t understand why it was such a big deal.
“Fear is even better fuel than anger” – p215
I LOVE HOW AART WAS FILLED WITH TWISTS AND TURNS
This book had A LOT of stuff that went down. I really enjoyed how Hank showed how the fame changed April in such a way that it felt natural. You didn’t really notice how much it changed her until the end, when it was too late. She starts out so against the media to the point where she is addicted to the attention. She posts every little thing that happens to her on her twitter and she even gave away a clue because of it. I was SO mad at her at the end where she literally starts filming her death. WHY??!!
I also did not expect Maya to be so into the Carls. Of all people, she was the last one I would have thought to have been the one to decode so many of the hidden messages the Carls had in the Dream. Since the beginning of the book, we knew she was a smart person, but was also VERY hesitant about the Carls. She was very mistrustful of them and didn’t want anything to do with them. But at the same time, I was happy that she was the one to decode all the messages, and that the reason she got so into it was because of April.
And Jennifer Putnam?! How could she?! Robin just dropped a bomb when he just casually announced that Jennifer had been working with Peter Petrawicki the WHOLE. TIME. I never really trusted Jennifer considering how manipulative she was, but I at least expected her to be a decent human being and not back stab April. Even though I was mad at Robin for have knowing this fact for months, April was way too harsh on him. She shouldn’t have yelled at him to get out. Technically speaking, Robin was hired under Jennifer and so he might have not been able to tell her for legal reasons, and just the fact that he told her was big.
“Carl just had too much mass–we couldn’t stop falling into his gravity anymore than we could jump into the moon” – p87
I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THE CARLS
I have very mixed feelings about the Carls. I want to be able to trust them, but I need to know more about them. For example, what do they want? Why humans? Also, why did they save April from the bullet? Why did it have to be her? I can’t make up my mind about them without knowing more.
There was also the whole thing with putting stuff up to the Carls causing something to happen. I don’t know what April was thinking when she touched the iodine to the Carl. Especially right after when she felt dizzy, instead of letting someone else do the americium, she once again has to do it herself. She does not think things thoroughly and makes rash and impulsive decisions. I also wonder what would’ve happened if they tried the uranium and how significant that would’ve been. The iodine, caused the Dream, and the americium caused the hand to run off. The hand did catch the bullet, and the dream was what told them to put the gold to the statues, causing them to leave. Maybe the uranium could have saved her life? Either way, I hope we get to find out in the next book.
“Oh, April, we’re all just satellite in your orbit” – p203
THE RELATIONSHIPS
Something that I did like in this book was the diversity, which is something that John’s books lack. However, I never really liked Maya and April together. From the start you get the feeling that they’re not quite right for each other and I always felt on edge when they were together. Something about them just didn’t click. April never really felt committed to the relationship, and treated it like it wasn’t that important. They never talked that openly about what they were going through, and lacked the communication that is necessary for a strong and healthy relationship. Especially at the end, after Maya sends the text telling April not to go and really writing her feelings, which must have been so hard for her, April just ignores it. That really got on my nerves.
The whole Miranda and April situation. I hated it. They never actually addressed it afterwards and just left it awkwardly hanging in the air. I want to erase it from ever even happening from my memory.
Towards they the end, it doesn’t go into much detail about it, but I enjoyed Andy and Miranda. It felt right and fit naturally, something that all the other relationships in the book lacked, and why they all failed. Although they kind of separated at the very end, I would like to see more of them in book 2. I will admit though, that in the beginning I might have shipped Andy and April a little. Just a little.
“Human beings are terrible at accepting uncertainty, so when we’re ignorant, we make assumption based on how we imagine the world. ” – p215
CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE ENDING??!!
I cannot express my feelings in words. At the very end we learn that the Carls had actually chosen April from the very beginning. THE BEGINNING. How they knew that she was going to become famous boggles my mind. And the fact that they came to Earth to SEE HOW WE WOULD REACT. The entire plot of the book just boils down to aliens wanting to see how we would react if they met us. In fact, the entire book was just a reaction when you look at it that way. It was also very creepy when she asked the Carl how they felt about humanity and then he just responds, “Beautiful.” I don’t know about you, but that certainly gave me the creeps. The Carl also mentioned that this was just the beginning of the process, which I think will play a big role in the next book. I am excited to see how the rest of the process will unfold and how that will affect all the characters.
Now, the big elephant in the room. When we thought April was dead for weeks until Andy just receives a text saying , “Knock Knock”. KNOCK KNOCK?! That raises so many questions that I need answers to now. Is she still alive? If so, why did she send a text that sounds so creepy? Is her body hosting a Carl? Is it someone just messing around? My current theory is that her body is hosting a Carl and that she is in fact alive. Part of the process might be to see how humans react and if they are smart enough to find out that one of their own is serving as a host. At the end he did say, “Your story just started, April May.” Maybe that is what he means? Can the end goal be to live inside all the humans and infest them like parasites like in The Fifth Wave? Or maybe he means her legacy and the after effect of her death? This book was also written by April, and at the end Andy takes over because she “wasn’t around for this part of the story” and that he thinks “the book helped her”. Maybe she writes the book after everything has gone by, and she wasn’t conscious for this part, so Andy took over? I don’t know, but I am excited to find out.
“It’s so much easier for people to get excited about disliking something than agreeing to like it” – p214
WHAT KEPT THE BOOK FROM BEING PERFECT
As much as I loved the book, there was just one thing that kept it from being perfect for me. The book just became way to political. I understand that there would be politics involved, and that everyone would try to add their two cents, but for me it just went a bit overboard. It was interesting to se how the politics impacted April and how she hated political pundits, but then became one herself. However, for me it did go a bit overboard how she found the need to respond to every single tweet calling her out and argue with everyone that disagrees with her. The book kind of veered itself into that direction and became too much about advocating for the Carls, when in reality, she knew little to nothing about what they wanted and why they are here.
“As time passed, no one really knew how to move on.” – p337
OVERALL FEELINGS
I loved this book! It has a thrilling, fast-paced plot with very well developed characters and subplots. I am very excited for the next book and will one hundred percent read it as soon as it comes out. I want to know what happens next and how the the rest of the Carls’ plan unfolds. I NEED BOOK TWO RIGHT NOW!!
lit spaghetti 