An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Courtesy of Penguin and Random House Publishing

Patrycja Chrzanowska, Editor in Chief
October 19, 2018

From Looking for Alaska to Turtles all the Way Down, John Green has written (or co written) 8 popular YA novels in the past 14 years, the most famous being The Fault in Our Stars (2012). Needless to say, John Green has surely created a name for himself in literature, specifically contemporary YA romance, but what many people don’t know is that John Green apparently isn’t the only writer in the Green family.

Hank Green is John Green’s younger brother. The two have, what some would call, “an online multimedia empire.” If you don’t recognize John’s name from the literature community, you may know him and Hank from the internet. The Green brothers are well known for their VlogBrothers YouTube channel, the Crash Course YouTube channel, their podcast (Dear Hank and John), and even a YouTube convention known as Vidcon of which John Green is a cofounder.

Ever since John Green’s first book, Looking for Alaska, was released in 2005, Hank has been nothing but supportive of John’s career. He even accompanied John on his latest book tour for Turtles all the Way Down in 2017. Now, however, the roles have been reversed as Hank Green’s debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (AART), was released on September 25, 2018 and he announced a book tour which his brother will be joining him on.

Eager to get your hands on a copy of AART? Well, you wouldn’t be the only one. As you could probably imagine, there has been a ton of hype surrounding this book lately, partly due to Hank’s relation to John who, as previously mentioned, already has pre-established popularity as an author. A www.goodreads.com user by the name of Kales says, “Admittedly, I picked up this book because it was written by Hank Green, John Green’s brother and YouTuber extraordinaire.” This makes some fans believe that Hank’s writing probably isn’t very good and that he’s more or less just banking off his name. After all, it’s probably difficult for one to judge a book objectively if they already have bias towards John Green’s books or towards Hank Green from his work on the Internet. Whether that’s true or not is up to the reader to decide.

The novel is about a 23 year old woman named April May, who unintentionally becomes an overnight celebrity and gets herself involved in a chaotic conspiracy, simply by uploading a YouTube video with a cool sculpture. Sound intriguing? There’s been mixed reviews so far. Goodreads user, beckyt213, calls the book “incredible,” as well as, “relevant, insightful,” and “a compelling scientific adventure.” On the other hand, the user, Soloman ~ TheBookishKing, describes the book as simply “trash.” AART currently has a 4.4 star average rating on goodreads, but it is unclear whether that is because the book truly well written or because “Hank Green” is on the cover.

So what’s the truth? You decide:

https://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-Remarkable-Thing-Novel/dp/1524743445