Offered Books:
The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
The Lies We Told by Camilla Way
In the Hurricane's Eye by Nathaniel Philbrick
Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
Selected:
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Others Purchased:
None - yet
I felt pressured to like this book when I first selected it. It had been highly recommended to me by a good friend - one that I had disagreed with before, though that was on movies moreso than books. I did still select it, however, and read it fairly quickly after it arrived. Did I like it? Yes, for the most part.
The book quickly received a few strikes against it: The main character's name is April May, which it acknowledges as cheesy, but I still found it to be a bit too precious. This was exacerbated by the 'voice' of April - the novel is told almost entirely from her perspective - driving home that somewhat-twee tone that I worried would dominate the novel. Following that was a tendency in the early chapters to Drop Hints about what would happen later - mostly as chapter cliffhangers - and boy howdy was I about ready to write the novel off even as I forced myself to finish it.
Thankfully, April matures as the plot of the novel goes forward. She and her friend Andy make a recording of a 10-foot tall sculpture in the middle of New York - which April dubs Carl - and it is soon discovered that these figures have appeared all over the world. Not only that, but people also start experiencing a shared dream filled with puzzles. As the first to document the existence of the Carls, April is thrust into the limelight as people discuss what to do about them and the shared dream.
One thing I appreciate about Green's plot structure is that he doesn't have everyone approach these two phenomena with benevolence: a main plot of the novel concerns April pushing back against Peter Petrawicki and his 'Defenders' who believe the Carls are malevolent and that the shared dream is an infection meant to destroy/enslave the human race. This was released pre-COVID, and the threats/harassment April goes through is very reminiscent of how certain leaders treated those sounding the alarm about that disease.
Another aspect I want to give Green credit for is his ability to describe characters through April's perspective but still have them be strong enough that they feel independent of her narrative. Maya, Andy, Robin, and Miranda - even Peter - all feel like actual characters. And through subtle writing, Green allows the reader to have different opinions about those characters than April, which is quite a feat for a first-person narrative.
The novel also stands alone well despite being part 1 of a 2-parter. In fact, the ending is kind of a perfect cliffhanger - so different from the early chapters that it feels almost unreal for both to be in the same book - and had me actually excited for the follow-up novel. And I loved April by the end of it too.
An easy recommend.
4 out of 5
BONUS REVIEW!
So, as noted above, I was excited for this follow-up. So much so that I made my first ever non-Stephen King preorder of a book. While I had my criticisms for An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, it was an enjoyable book overall, and I had faith that Green would write a stronger second novel. And I was correct.
Set shortly after the end of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor manages to expand on the previous novel in almost every conceivable way: The story is told through the perspectives of multiple characters instead of just April and expands the action so that the stakes feel appropriately epic in scale. This novel has a book giving orders to people, a person trapped inside a simulation, and a character casually becoming a billionaire and none of it feels forced. I cannot stress how wild that is to write: that's not even everything crazy that happens in this novel.
If Green had done a phenomenal job in the first novel of making the side characters independent of April despite it being her perspective - and he did - then this opportunity to delve into each of those character was not one to be wasted. I can't fault a single one of them: every decision they make - even the bad ones - feels character appropriate as they make them.
The plot, without giving too much away, expands on the first novel with the Carls being a test - one that humanity didn't exactly pass - and the response to that 'failure.' Each of the characters responds to their various circumstances without having a clear idea of what is happening to the others, which keeps the greater plot mysterious enough that the reader doesn't become frustrated even as they learn new things along with the characters.
If I have any critiques, they would primarily be some ideas being under-explored while spending too much time on subplots that, while necessary, feel overly-long. I'd like to not only know more about the simulated world and how it works and less about the funding for/attempt to purchase said world. Trust me, that sentence will make sense once you've read the actual book.
A great sequel, one that makes me hope we get more from Hank Green.
4.5 out of 5
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