Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

50 reviews

aeons_v_atlas's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Delightfully entertaining with thought-provoking commentary on fame. Didn't expect it to have me on the edge of my seat at the end

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Gun violence and Hate crime

Minor: Biphobia, Xenophobia, and Outing

meremeth's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, and Biphobia

kellysavagebooks's review against another edition

mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

A massive transformer-esque statue appears in New York. Intrigued, April calls up a friend and they shoot a YouTube video. April wakes up the next morning an internet celebrity and finds herself launched into a world of TV interviews, hateful Internet forums, and—just maybe—first contact?

I put off reading this book for ages for two reasons. One, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, and anything with “contemporary” in the subgenres usually isn’t for me. Two (and this one is stupid), I loved John Green’s books as a teenager, but I’ve completely grown out of them. I’ve adored Hank and John for over like 15 years so I REALLY didn’t want to be disappointed by this book.

And I certainly wasn’t. Hank’s debut is insightful, powerful, funny, and it whisked me right along for the ride. April is wildly unlikeable but still kind of charming and I couldn’t look away.  I thought about R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface a lot while I read this. The themes (aside from the racial focus of Yellowface) are very similar. April’s less nasty than June, but she still ends up in the position she’s in because she’s privileged and lucky and little else. The books have similar discussions about online spaces and internet fame. AART, though, leaves you feeling hopeful about the human race, and it wants to point you toward compassion. Yellowface, not so much. Different approaches, and I found I preferred this one.

I’m genuinely shocked by how much I loved this, and I need to get my hands on book 2!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Biphobia, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

abbysnofun's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i mostly liked this book. i was a bit taken out of the story at times because often the characters talk exactly like hank green, which is not necessarily bad but hank green is not a 23 year old girl. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Biphobia and Gun violence

koplomps's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Blood, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Confinement, Death, and Violence

Minor: Biphobia and Xenophobia

mels_reading_log's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I read this in one day, it was such a captivating store I couldn’t stop, I had to know what happened next. This is my first Hank Green book I’ve read and I will have to read more. This story is about a woman who comes across a large sculpture in New York, thinks it is great and ends up going viral and starting a movement. Highly recommend!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Gun violence, and Murder

hayleyvharrington's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, and Death

bessadams's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Gun violence, Medical content, Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia

lizziaha's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Damn there were some hard-hitting truths cooked into the story in this one. I saw a negative review of this book that criticized that the “alien book” wasn’t about aliens, and I have to wonder how someone can so entirely lack reading comprehension. As most alien books are, at their core, this book was about humans, in all their wonderful fucked up glory. It was about social media and how, like humans, there are two sides to that coin. It’s about fame and what it makes people do. And it’s about April, who is seriously seriously flawed. Just like everyone else. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Biphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Confinement, Xenophobia, Addiction, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Violence

Minor: Grief and Homophobia

lilifane's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Ah, this is difficult. I should have loved this. I wanted to love this so much. But unfortunately, I didn't. I did love the middle part with the puzzle, I basically flew through that. But the first 40% were really hard to get through and although the second half got better, I didn't feel much. I think this was my biggest issue with the book. I really liked the premise, the topics discussed here, the bi representation. I liked how media and the life of a person who suddenly becomes famous is depicted. And I understand that the protagonist is an unlikable character on purpose. I even liked that she had flaws and made mistakes (even though I got annoyed when she didn't learn from them at all). But at the same time she has issues with feelings and shuts them out completely, so I really had trouble to care for her story and her cause. Because I didn't feel anything. I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it either, so my rating is somewhere in the middle. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Gun violence, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Homophobia