Book Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls, #1) by Hank Green
Narrator: Kristen Sieh, Hank Green
Series: The Carls #1
Published by Dutton on September 25, 2018
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 343
Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads
Overal Rating:

The Carls just appeared.
Coming home from work 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 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--everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. 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.
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"--

I wish I had written this review a month ago when the book was fresher in my memory, but life has been busy and complicated since then.

I just want to say I had high expectations for the book, but it didn’t deliver at all. I think I was only able to finish it because I listened to the audiobook while doing chores at home, and the audio production was good. The story, not so much.

I didn’t buy into the characters or their motivations. I just didn’t understand the message that April May tried to deliver throughout the whole book. It was like an empty package wrapped in the most extravagant and colorful paper one could find. The characters were flat, April May was immature, and the whole thing didn’t make a lot of sense. There were plenty of deaths due to the statues, but somehow only April was protected because she was so special. Again, I don’t know what about. This book is like the Emperor’s New Clothes story. Probably the Chosen One trope is just not for me, especially if there’s nothing that makes the person special and the author is just trying to sell us BS and make it look cool.

Story (Plot)
Narration
Overall: