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A review by a_mae13
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
5.0
"And then tomorrow we forget about it in favor of some other absolutely perfect and remarkable thing."
I'll preface this with I have been a follower of Hank Green since high school. I have watched Crash Course, SciShow, and have re-watched his appearances on Good Mythical Morning several times. So, I was pretty much primed to love his novel. With that being said, I still think that this is an excellent novel and that non-science fiction readers should give it a try. It's funny, it's relatable, and with the digital age and AI advancements, it's ever more pertinent to society to explore these what ifs in regard to extraterrestrial life.
This story follows April May, an art graduate living in New York City with her girlfriend Maya. She discovers this new art installation and immediately calls her best friend Andy to record the piece. He has several social media platforms that could use a hot new topic like an overnight sculpture popping up on the streets of New York. The video goes viral because 64 other cities around the globe have the exact same installation that seemingly appeared over night, and April May is an instant media star. Her interview with the sculpture, which she named Carl, became a huge talk within the scientific community since April mentioned that the sculpture wasn't cold despite being metal. This prompted Miranda Beckwith, a doctoral candidate at UC Berkley, to reach out to April. Why? Because no known metal has the capability of retaining heat.
As the story unfolds, people begin to talk about this dream that they're having about Carl. They're in a hotel and they have a puzzle to solve, the answer must be relied to Carl. Well, almost everyone is having this dream. Miranda discovers that Carl is asking for periodic elements, specially Iodine, Americium, and Uranium, and this may have been the cause of the collective dream. People start forums to list the answers for the riddles in the dream, hoping that this will lead to what Carl is. Conspiracist Peter Petrawicki publishes a manifesto titled <i> Invaded </i> asserting that the Carl statues are clearly extraterrestrial and that by spreading this collective dream, the Carls are infiltrating our minds and how we think. This opposition to the sculptures strikes fear into the community, causing a rift between April and Peter: pro-Carl and against-Carl.
April, Miranda, Andy, and April's assistant Robin team up in an effort to solve the dream riddles and discover the truth behind Carl. Is he an alien? Is he benevolent? Is he deadly? April believes that Carl wants humanity to work together, hence why everyone is having the same dream. Some riddles have very niche answers, requiring someone with that niche knowledge to come along and solve it. Petrawicki believes that Carl is an infection that is rotting the brains of humanity. While keeping their public image alive and dodging death threats/attempts from Petrawicki's army, the gang discovers that April has a very specific part of the dream that is the "last clue" in the riddle. She calls upon her follows to help her solve the riddle. BUT Petrawicki's army claims to have already solved the riddle. April follows the solution brought forth by her opponents and is trapped in a warehouse, that is set on fire. It was a set up.
Inside, she discovers that Carl is still communicating with her and wants her to get out alive. She solves the final clue (everyone must touch something gold onto every Carl, at once) and live streams her in a burning building, pleading for the world to make this happen. When each Carl is touched by gold, every single statue around the world, vanishes. April is still trapped in the building, and when a burning beam falls onto her, she is transported back into the dream, with Carl.
I loved everything about this book. I read it in a single day (well listened to it) and immediately ordered the second one, because it was a cliffhanger. THANKS, HANK. The only part I didn't love was how fast the president got involved. April is a 23 year-old, attention obsessed, egocentric nobody (which, same) so I found it difficult to suspend THAT much belief that the president would come speak with her one-on-one. Maybe I'm completely wrong in assuming that if this were to happen, anyone in our government would actually care without finding an angle to capitalize, but that was the only point that took me out of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably think about it A LOT. It's so much more believable that an entity like Carl would exist over the typical little green space men that we see in so much science fiction.
I'll preface this with I have been a follower of Hank Green since high school. I have watched Crash Course, SciShow, and have re-watched his appearances on Good Mythical Morning several times. So, I was pretty much primed to love his novel. With that being said, I still think that this is an excellent novel and that non-science fiction readers should give it a try. It's funny, it's relatable, and with the digital age and AI advancements, it's ever more pertinent to society to explore these what ifs in regard to extraterrestrial life.
This story follows April May, an art graduate living in New York City with her girlfriend Maya. She discovers this new art installation and immediately calls her best friend Andy to record the piece. He has several social media platforms that could use a hot new topic like an overnight sculpture popping up on the streets of New York. The video goes viral because 64 other cities around the globe have the exact same installation that seemingly appeared over night, and April May is an instant media star. Her interview with the sculpture, which she named Carl, became a huge talk within the scientific community since April mentioned that the sculpture wasn't cold despite being metal. This prompted Miranda Beckwith, a doctoral candidate at UC Berkley, to reach out to April. Why? Because no known metal has the capability of retaining heat.
As the story unfolds, people begin to talk about this dream that they're having about Carl. They're in a hotel and they have a puzzle to solve, the answer must be relied to Carl. Well, almost everyone is having this dream. Miranda discovers that Carl is asking for periodic elements, specially Iodine, Americium, and Uranium, and this may have been the cause of the collective dream. People start forums to list the answers for the riddles in the dream, hoping that this will lead to what Carl is. Conspiracist Peter Petrawicki publishes a manifesto titled <i> Invaded </i> asserting that the Carl statues are clearly extraterrestrial and that by spreading this collective dream, the Carls are infiltrating our minds and how we think. This opposition to the sculptures strikes fear into the community, causing a rift between April and Peter: pro-Carl and against-Carl.
April, Miranda, Andy, and April's assistant Robin team up in an effort to solve the dream riddles and discover the truth behind Carl. Is he an alien? Is he benevolent? Is he deadly? April believes that Carl wants humanity to work together, hence why everyone is having the same dream. Some riddles have very niche answers, requiring someone with that niche knowledge to come along and solve it. Petrawicki believes that Carl is an infection that is rotting the brains of humanity. While keeping their public image alive and dodging death threats/attempts from Petrawicki's army, the gang discovers that April has a very specific part of the dream that is the "last clue" in the riddle. She calls upon her follows to help her solve the riddle.
I loved everything about this book. I read it in a single day (well listened to it) and immediately ordered the second one, because it was a cliffhanger. THANKS, HANK. The only part I didn't love was how fast the president got involved. April is a 23 year-old, attention obsessed, egocentric nobody (which, same) so I found it difficult to suspend THAT much belief that the president would come speak with her one-on-one. Maybe I'm completely wrong in assuming that if this were to happen, anyone in our government would actually care without finding an angle to capitalize, but that was the only point that took me out of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably think about it A LOT. It's so much more believable that an entity like Carl would exist over the typical little green space men that we see in so much science fiction.