Review of 'An Absolutely Remarkable Thing' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Boldly, Green adds the „#“ to the title.
352 pages
Published Sept. 25, 2018 by Dutton.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: A Novel
by Hank Green
4 stars
(3 reviews)
In Hank Green's sweeping, cinematic debut novel, a young woman becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagine.
THE CARLS JUST APPEARED.
Roaming through New York City 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 best 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--from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.
Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of …
In Hank Green's sweeping, cinematic debut novel, a young woman becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagine.
THE CARLS JUST APPEARED.
Roaming through New York City 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 best 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--from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.
Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.
Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring from the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye. The beginning of an exciting fiction career, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a bold and insightful novel of now.
This description comes from the publisher.
Review of 'An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: A Novel' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Wow. This was a bit of a headrush of a work, and no mistake. April's at once delightfully typical of a rather vague yet strangely realistically defined young woman swept up in the trappings of today's society, yet also this rather cantankerous, hard-to-like ... brat? is that a fair word? She's got great parents, living her dream, a relationship but tonnes of insecurity and just bulls, headstrong, through things in the hopes they turn out to be OK. It's odd. very odd. And yet it works, wholeheartedly - you come away with an indescribably complicated melange that leaves you at once spellbound, enlightened and a little disappointed, all at he same time.
Unfortunately, the sort of novel I can't really quantify. I didn't want to put it down, though.
