They don’t speak and they don’t move and there’s no information as to why they’re there. The Carls appear early in the morning and soon news spreads all across social media of their presence. His use of it is one of the first instances where social media breaks the story of the arrival of the alien presence. What makes it stand out in this book is how Hank Green uses that trope. It’s a visual that’s immediately threatening and captivating. It’s no coincidence that other science fiction stories have used the idea of some kind of alien presence suddenly appearing over multiple cities all across the world at exactly the same time before. The first really good thing is the premise itself. I’ll get to those in a bit, but first, let’s talk about the good stuff because there’s a lot of it. It’s a very good read but there are a few things that keep it from being as good as I wanted it to be.
I wanna say from the outset that I didn’t love this book. 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.Ĭompulsively 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. 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. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. 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.
Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture.
It’s a book about how fame corrupts us, the dangers of radicalization, and what makes us human. It’s a book about more than giant alien robot statues invading the Earth. A book about giant robots from space that mysteriously appear out of nowhere in 64 cities all around the world written by Hank Green, one-half of one of my favorite YouTube channels? Sign me up! An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is the debut novel from Hank Green, co-creator of the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers and the brother of best-selling YA novelist John Green.
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