Review for "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing" by Hank Green

"It is easy for me to recognize that I made some good decisions and some bad ones. But it's telling that, with this, I knew it was a bad idea even then but I still couldn't control myself. Knowing something is a bad idea does not always decrease the odds that you will do it." 



Rating: 4.25 stars

April May has made some very bad decisions. Including, but not limited to, meddling in alien technology without knowing what the heck she was doing, withholding information to relevant government bodies, and turning on her friends for the purpose of increasing, maintaining, or augmenting her fame. One of the best parts of this story is that April is a very flawed human. I love this aspect of the book so much. The entire theme of the story is the differences between humans and machines like the Carls; humans are flawed and dysfunctional and all the more beautiful (Carl's words, not mine), for it. April May is an excellent example of this. On one hand, April's flawed thinking is super entertaining. You know that the decision she's making is a stupid one, but you want to know what will happen when she does it. On the other hand, you can't even be that frustrated with her horrible choices because the story is set up so that April is constantly talking about how she knows the stuff she did was dumb and sometimes regretting those decisions.

On top of the characters, which are entertaining, realistic, and diverse without being cringeworthily obvious about it (a common trope in YA contemporaries nowadays), the plot was unexpected and just interesting. The fact is, the majority of the science fiction parts in this book were absolutely absurd. Not in a way that was like "bahh this would never happen I hate how unrealistic it is". But more in the way that's like "I did not see THIS coming, I love it". I mean, I wasn't anticipating such a tribute to CRJ's 2012 pop masterpiece but I am certainly not complaining.

The other thing about this book is that it didn't go in the direction I anticipated to begin with. It was much more a contemporary, in my opinion, than a science fiction book. The plot with the Carls was almost just a subplot, a thing that had to happen to further the main plot. And what was that main plot, you ask? April May's insane navigation through the world of fame and fortune (but mostly fame). In April's quest for fame, she learns about human desire and relationships, cruelty, humanity, and what it means to have a truly common goal. The plot here was so intricate that I can only imagine the author had some experience with this himself or did a LOT of research for it. Either way, the story was just well crafted and gorgeous. This is really just a quirky and fun yet meaningful contemporary with splashes of science fiction throughout. -0.75 stars because there wasn't quite enough of the science fiction to hold my absolute attention 100% of the time.