Review: WHITE SAND, VOL. 2 by Brandon Sanderson

Rating: 3/5

The whole planet of Taldain and its sand magic is a great addition to the Cosmere, and I hope Sanderson eventually makes it back to this story and revises and officially releases the White Sand novel into the world.

While I enjoyed the concept behind the graphic novel, I much preferred the first installment as I felt that this volume was just missing something. The story was anticlimactic at times, and I struggled to fully grasp some details of the narrative. There were scenes when I could tell something important was happening or some crucial information was just revealed, but I couldn’t quite tell what. I hate to say anything negative about any of Sanderson’s works, but I think the graphic novel format here hinders the story. I am really looking forward to reading the prose version of White Sand because I think I will enjoy it much more due to the extra layer of details.

Something that bothered me, that I did notice in the first volume but didn’t include in my review, was that the people who live on Dayside, under the perpetual sun, are light-skinned. And the people who live on Darkside, where it’s perpetual night, are dark-skinned. This is totally backward of how it would actually be, so it confused me at first.

One nice thing about this version, though, is that Sanderson’s humor has managed to transfer to the graphic novel format. I really appreciate this because his humor is something not to be missed in any of his works.

Another thing I liked was that when the characters speak in different languages, the speech bubbles change color slightly so you know when the language changes. This was really neat to me, and I’ve never seen this technique used before (I didn’t notice it in volume one, but that’s not to say it wasn’t there too).

Something I want to note is that the art in the last chapter drastically changed design from the rest of the story. It changed from a gruff style to a neatly polished style, and I have no idea why. At first, I thought it might be because the characters were in a dream sequence or an alternate reality, but then the chapter—and the book—ended and I realized it must be that the story got a new artist (I later confirmed this by looking at the title page that I had skimmed over earlier). I would be curious to find out why this happened and if the new artist will be drawing for the third book because I actually prefer the cleaner art style (even though I think the original style suits the story better).

I have no idea when the third and final White Sand volume is being released but I think I should read the novelization of the story first so I don’t spoil myself for the ending. I do hope the last volume will be a bit more interesting plot-wise than this one that was a bit slower-paced, but we shall see.

Review: THE LAKE HOUSE by Kate Morton

Rating: 5/5 stars

Kate Morton has done it again! This book was amazingly breathtaking, beautiful in every way. I could not put it down, which was so refreshing after my last read that I struggled to pick up.

You know when a book is so delicious that you physically can’t read the pages fast enough? When you ignore chores, showering, sleeping, and even food just to fit in one more chapter? That was this book for me. (I would have finished it even faster if it I didn’t have to work.)

The Lake House follows the lives of three different people: Eleanor in 1911; her daughter Alice in 1933; and detective Sadie in 2003, who is trying to uncover the seventy-year-old mystery of what happened to Eleanor’s son, Theo, when he randomly disappeared one night. I have read in other reviews that some people found it hard to keep the timelines straight and what was happening to who, but I didn’t find that to be the case at all. It was actually very easy for me to mentally construct a timeline for this story, and when the chapter began and stated it was 1933, I would go right to that spot in my mind. I think if you actually pay attention while you read, it won’t be confusing in the least bit. The characters each have distinct voices, as well.

The narrative did start out rather slow, establishing the lives of each of the characters, and I found myself eagerly waiting for the mystery to start. That was probably just my own anticipation of getting lost in another Kate Morton book, but keep in mind that the story does pick up its pace throughout.

Kate Morton is just so dang clever! She literally spells out for you everything you need to know, yet the ending still hits you like a wall, when you look back and finally realize all the hints and pieces of the story were there all along. I don’t know how she does it, but she is good!

I actually did guess one of the big reveals at the end during the first few chapters of the book. There were no clues or anything; I just pulled an absurd idea out of my head and went on believing it the whole story. I had almost given up hope when in the last few pages it came to light that I was right all along! Always trust your instincts. And this in no way dampened the ending of the story or the joy from the journey. I was actually very happy that I had guessed right because it was such a sweet moment for the characters.

One thing I especially loved about The Lake House is that one of the characters, Alice, is a mystery writer. At one point, she explains to someone about things that mystery writers should do to concoct a good story. I loved this part because it was like a foreshadowing of Kate’s own novel. Alice mentioned some things and I was like, oh I bet that’s how she did it in this book too! It was great. The way Morton weaves her story together is truly superb.

What I love about her writing is that she gives the reader clues in every chapter, hints all along the way, so when you get to the end it’s like all the details are coming together and you finally understand why each piece of information was given. I don’t like books that keep everything a secret and then drop it all on you in the last few pages, and this book is definitely not like that. She truly weaves the mystery into the story, into the lives of each character, and it’s beautiful how all the details intertwine. Her words painted a vivid picture in my mind with every detail.

I must mention that I do like the first book of Kate’s that I read, The Forgotten Garden, better than this book because of its air of magical whim, while The Lake House is a darker novel with a more grim setting, but it is still excellent and completely deserving of five stars. One significant difference between the two books is that in The Forgotten Garden, the reader doesn’t know any clues that the characters don’t know. The past and present characters reveal secrets at the same time as each other. But in The Lake House, the past and present characters know completely different information that only slightly overlaps at times, so the reader ends up knowing clues that one narrator does not know, adding a bit of dramatic irony to the novel. It’s a different writing technique, and I liked being able to experience each style.

I cannot wait to read every single one of Kate Morton’s books in the future because she is definitely one of my favourite authors. If you enjoy dynamic historical fiction characters that are somehow connected to a character in the present who is trying to solve a decades-old mystery that is deeply intertwined in both her life and the lives of those in past generations, set mostly in the English countryside, then you will love Kate Morton’s books. I can’t recommend her enough!

Review: RED SISTER by Mark Lawrence

Rating: 2/5 stars

This book sounded awesome: it’s all about assassin nuns. I’d heard so many people raving about how amazing it was, and if you look at other reviews you will notice that almost everyone loves this book. Naturally, I had no doubt I would enjoy it too.

I was so very wrong.

I really, really wanted to like this book, and I honestly thought I would, but I just could not become interested in the story. I probably should have given the book one star for how bored and disappointed I was the entire time, but I didn’t because I do still like the idea behind the story, and I think this is an in-depth world that Lawrence probably spent a lot of time crafting. I didn’t hate the book, but it just did not deliver for me.

Everyone mentions in their reviews how the opening sentence/scene hooks you with epic action and the journey is only uphill from there, and even though the beginning was action-packed, I wasn’t pulled into the story yet. I kept reading. We follow Nona as a little girl when she was about to be hanged for a crime, and a nun comes to save her and take her to the Convent of Sweet Mercy. The first eighty or so pages were just Nona telling us her backstory—her entire life story in excruciating detail—and I was honestly so bored. The time jumps back and forth really disrupted the flow of the narrative. I could not keep all the characters straight, and Nona’s point of view felt very distant; I couldn’t connect with her, and in fact, I think she’s a very unrelatable character. Plus I didn’t care about her childhood drama at all.

Finally, Nona arrives at the convent, so I thought the plot would pick up and start to be interesting because I would be learning about this magical world and the different classes of Sisters and what they do. But the story still dragged for me. I couldn’t keep straight the Red Sister vs. the Holy Sister vs. the Holy Witch, etc. or what they all do, or which bloodlines produce which traits, and it just made me confused and uncaring. I do not think this aspect is explained well. Luckily for me, there was a glossary in the beginning will all this information because I had to keep referencing it.

Nona meets different girls at the Convent, some who tell her about the classes of Sisters in an unfortunately info-dumpy way that was difficult to keep straight, and she begins training. Much of this training is Nona sitting in a classroom learning different lessons. Long, slow lessons about the Path or something related to the Ancestor. Or she’s sparring with another sister in an uninteresting way. I just wanted something to happen! And we never learned what the whole point of the training was—what do these girls do after the convent? Who are they being trained to fight against? So much of this world felt left open and undeveloped, and I think Lawrence failed at telling what had the potential to be a great story.

Instead of Red Sister being about magical assassin nuns like I thought it would be, it was instead about little girls who are told by nuns about “magic” (I use this term lightly) but never actually get to use it, and they hardly ever assassinate anybody. We are told that Nona killed someone in her past, but there was none of that during the actual story until the very end. Where was all this killing I was promised?

The nuns are taught the Path, and they are supposed to one day touch the Path and walk the Path, but I honestly can’t even tell you what the Path is. Is it an intangible idea, the way of the Ancestor (who is only an idea but never fleshed out as an actual person; was the Ancestor even a real person?), or is it an obstacle course in the Convent? I actually have no clue what the Path is. And what does it mean to walk the Path? Why is this important? And what exactly is their religion? The whole concept of the story was cool, but it was entirely lost on me because nothing was explained well. For a story that takes place in a convent, there was very little explanation about the religion, which I found to be disappointing. I should not be asking these basic questions after reading 475 pages in this world.

The writing style is also very distant. I don’t know what specifically makes it that way, but I could not connect with any of the characters. They all blended together and I couldn’t tell one Sister from another, nor one girl from another. Everyone had basically the same personality. I also didn’t particularly like the prose because it was very dry. After reading this book, I don’t want to read any more books by Mark Lawrence if this is how he normally writes.

I honestly felt like my eyes were glazing over while I read. I could not even be made to care about any part of this book. At one point I reread an entire chapter and didn’t even realize it until the last page.

Even during action scenes, it felt like there was no action and no suspense. I don’t even know what was happening because all of the sudden the scene would be over and I just felt let down.

The whole story was so slow. I would sit down to read for an hour and realize I had read only ten pages. In an hour. I kept waiting and waiting for some excitement to occur, anything engaging to happen. But no matter how long I kept reading, this book never enraptured me like I had hoped so badly it would. I thought I would mark it as unfinished after fifty pages, but then I gave it until 100 pages, and then I gave it until 200 pages, and then eventually I struggled to the last page. I kept wanting to put it down but I also wanted so badly for it to get better, so I kept reading. But unfortunately, the story never did get any better.

Here are a few things I liked, at least: there was very little swearing in the book, which I appreciated; there’s also no romance in the book, which was nice for a change; there’s a strong focus on female friendships and what it really means to be someone’s friend; and Nona is not a chosen one, thank goodness, or I might have enjoyed the book even less.

I think my expectations were way too high because I ended up being extremely disappointed with Red Sister. I think it has the chance to be a good book for the right person, seeing as it has so many rave reviews, but I couldn’t tell you who the “right person” is because it was not for me. I never wanted to give up on the story so I kept pushing through, hoping it would get better, but it took me ages to finish. I kind of want to know what happens next, and I had planned on reading the whole trilogy, but I think I’m going to stop after this book because I don’t want to endure that much boredom for two more tomes. But if there’s ever a movie, I will definitely watch it because it would be loads more interesting and developed than the book is.

“Be warned, young Nona: a book is as dangerous as any journey you might take. The person who closes the back cover may not be the same one that opened the front one.”

Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE by J. K. Rowling

Rating: 5/5 stars

I would love to write a proper review for this book (and for every book in the series), but I don't even know what to say that hasn't already been said. It's just a downright good story.

I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when I was in seventh or eighth grade, but I didn't remember a thing about the story, and I didn't get past the second book then anyway, so I don't really count it as having read the book then. When I was a sophomore/junior in college, I decided it was time to actually read the whole series, so that's when I officially read it for the first time. And now, a few years later, I wanted to read the whole series again.

I was really in the mood for a reread of the Harry Potter series because they're the perfect books to read as it starts to get cold outside. This time around I am listening to the audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale, and I am amazed at his narration. He is very engaging to listen to, and his voices for Hagrid and Dumbledore sound exactly like they do in the movies. I really enjoyed this first one read by him, and I look forward to listening to the other six books on audio as well.

I forgot how much actually happened in this book. I've seen the movie so many times that when something happened in the book that wasn't in the movie, I was shocked that I had forgotten that. But there really is so much going on in this first book that I'm amazed it's not longer.

I love how in-depth the story is. I remember my first time reading this series a few years ago, and I was truly in awe of how well the story was concocted. Little details here and there set up the plot for the whole series, so when the book ended, I was hooked and wanting to know everything. Rowling's writing is not the best in this first book, and I can see that now that I've read all seven Harry Potter books and many more books in general, but I didn't mind at all. I just noticed that there was a lot of exposition and explanation instead of dialogue in places, especially in the beginning, but of course she had to give background and set up the whole world.

One thing I love about the Harry Potter books is that they have that classical, old magic and are set in a castle, but the story is also modern and set in today's age on earth. In my opinion, the setting of Hogwarts still being around in present-day England but just invisible to the muggles makes the story seem really relatable. Like Hogwarts could actually be there. I love when magical and fantastical elements in stories are believable, and I think that's one of the main reasons I first connected to Harry Potter as a fantasy series. It was the first fantasy series I read, now that I think about it, and it was my gateway drug into fantastical literature because that's my favorite genre now.

I know I will always treasure this series, even though I was late to the game and didn't read it when I was younger like everyone else my age did. I don't regret waiting until I was twenty-years-old to read it, but I do deeply wish that I hadn't known how the whole series ended before I started. Either way, it's still an excellent and timeless story.

Review: WHITE SAND, VOL. 1 by Brandon Sanderson

Rating: 4/5 stars

I read an excerpt of White Sand in Arcanum Unbounded earlier this year and fell in love with the story. I couldn’t wait to read the full-length graphic novel adaption.

In Arcanum Unbounded, the panels were just black and white, but in this actual graphic novel, there are full-color illustrations. The art style is not my favorite—it’s rather gruff—but every image is very detailed, which I can appreciate.

At first, I thought I was going to give this book five stars—it’s a Sanderson book, after all, and I absolutely loved the beginning. But after I got into reading more of the story, I was left wanting more. Some of the details surrounding how the world is set up and how the sand magic works and how the Daysiders are different from the Darksiders seemed like it was missing to me. I would read the last panel on a page, and then the next panel on the next page started with “two days later” or “days passed” or something like that, and it felt like the dialogue was cut off mid-conversation and part of the story was missing.

I am disappointed that I feel this way because I absolutely love this world and its magic system, but I think the feeling of missing something comes with the territory of reading a graphic novel.

White Sand was originally a fairly lengthy prose novel. It’s an unpublished work of Sanderson’s, but it is the where this story comes from. If I read the actual novel, with all the descriptions and details included in the prose, plus with all of the minor side-plots and conversations that naturally get omitted from the graphic translation, I do not think I would feel like anything was missing; I think I would enjoy the novel more than the graphic novel. I will have to read it to find out, though.

I think White Sand is a very strong story nonetheless, and I look forward to reading the other volumes. (Part of me wonders if I should read the prose novel first so as not to spoil myself.) In my opinion, this story would make an amazing movie because of how the sand magic would come to life. I hope someday it (or anything by Sanderson) becomes a movie for the world to enjoy.

Review: NIGHTFALL by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski

Rating: 2/5 stars

I decided on this audiobook because I wanted an October-themed read, and I guess this was technically one, but it wasn’t really what I was expecting and it didn’t satisfy my desire for a spooky book. It wasn’t scary at all and it had only minor suspense elements, but it does take place almost primarily during Night in the forest with strange creatures.

Marin, Kana, and Line are from the island of Bliss, which gets 14 years of sunlight and then 14 years of Night. That concept alone was intriguing enough to get me to read the book, but it’s not really what the book’s about.

The sun is setting and it is almost Night, and the inhabitants must leave the island and travel to the desert for safety. Just as the boats are about to set sail, Line goes missing, and Marin and Kana go into the forest in search of him. It is not hard to guess that the trio gets left behind and has to survive Night on the island, presumably for fourteen years, until everyone comes back.

This book had its creepy and mysterious moments, but something was just missing. It felt like a mixture of Midwinterblood and Bird Box, and I frequently thought of both those books while reading this one.

I was mostly enjoying the story until about halfway through when I started to lose interest because everything started to turn toward paranormal elements, and it honestly felt like a cop-out to me. Like there was no way to explain certain events without introducing these inhuman creatures. And I didn’t like that. I don’t really like paranormal or supernatural stories, especially when they catch me off guard. I didn’t know this book was going to be that way prior to starting it, so I was a little disappointed when it happened.

I almost always don’t like supernatural creatures in stories because they are never explained well enough. Where did these things come from anyway? The people have lived on Bliss for fourteen years yet have never seen the creatures? We found out where they were hiding all that time, but it just seems so improbable that neither race would run into the other in all those years.

Another thing that disappointed me was that I expected the characters to not be able to see at all when it became Night on the island—it would be pitch black darkness. But there’s a moon. And they can kind of see. So that made the story a little more lackluster because it lowered the stakes for them. Have you ever run around in complete blackness, no moon or sliver of light at all? It’s terrifying. You have no idea which way anything is, no depth perception. You have to rely completely on your other senses to get you where you’re going. And I kind of thought that’s how this story would be—and it would have been cool to listen to on audio because I could lie in bed and close my eyes to imagine myself in their place. But it wasn’t like that. The characters can see and they describe things they’re seeing all the time, even if their vision is rather poor during Night.

Also, this story was told from a third-person omniscient perspective, which can make it difficult to keep track of who’s thinking what or who’s saying what at times. Because of this, I did feel a bit detached from the characters throughout the story.

Overall, Nightfall was not what I was expecting or hoping for, so it was ultimately disappointing and forgettable to me. But I don’t think it was a bad book; it just didn’t live up to my expectations. I would still encourage you to read it if it sounds interesting to you, but now you might have a better idea of the minor details that mattered to me and how they were presented in the story.

The best part of the book, in my opinion, was the song included at the end of the audiobook called “The Other Side of Me” by Celia Rose. The lyrics sounded like she wrote them based on this book, which is pretty neat.

Review: JACKED UP by Erica Sage

Rating: 3/5 stars

I was a little nervous starting this book for two reasons: 1) my favorite teacher wrote it so I obviously wanted to love it, and 2) I was worried it was going to be rather sacrilegious, in which case I knew I wouldn’t love it.

Jacked Up is about fifteen-year-old Nick, who is having trouble coping with his sister’s suicide and who is haunted by the ghost of Jack Kerouac. His parents try to help him grieve by sending him to a Christian church camp for a week. There is a box at the camp where people put their confessions and their darkest secrets. Nick slips in a secret, one he didn’t even want to write down in the first place, and later that day the box gets stolen. Worried his confession will be revealed, Nick sets out to find who stole the box and retrieve his slip of paper.

The writing is great: funny and descriptive and interesting. And the plot of Nick grieving for his sister’s death and being sent to a religious summer camp (and the messages that us readers get from Nick’s experience) was enjoyable too. But I didn’t really care for the actual camp itself.

That is my only real criticism of the book—how the church camp was portrayed and what kinds of activities happened there. I think the point was that it be outrageously absurd, but I was still really bothered by it. I was very suspicious of that camp because it seemed pretty unrealistic to me: kids dressing up as prostitutes and lepers from the Bible, kids watching a Jesus character perform magic tricks (it is deeply disrespectful to dress up and pretend to perform miracles like Jesus, by the way, and I would be so offended if I saw this at camp), kids playing with Ouija boards, kids carrying literal crosses for their sins (!?), and kids shunning Nick for liking Harry Potter because it’s “satanic.” We’ve had Harry Potter-themed events at my (somewhat conservative) church camp before, so Nick being asked to use his Harry Potter towel “wrong side out” seems overly drastic to me. In fact, the six years I went to church camp were vastly different from Nick’s experience, and it was always a positive environment for me. I think a lot of what happened at Nick’s church camp is, frankly, wrong, but I have no idea if it is a realistic portrayal of some kind of church camp out there or if it has been exaggerated for the book; I can compare only my own experiences. Regardless, I enjoyed the whole camp experience better if I looked at it as a parody on modern devout Christians and how every Christian that comments on the hypocrisy in the church and then says “I’m not judging you” is, in fact, actually a hypocrite that’s secretly judging you.

Something I think a lot of people nowadays, especially Christians (and many of the characters in this book), don’t understand is that Christ loved everyone, and to be a true follower of Christ, we should also love everyone. Judging someone for this or that or deciding that someone is going to hell is wrong and that’s not our decision to make. Only God, who can see a person’s heart, mind, and desires, can truly make that judgment call.

I am glad that Nick sees all the irony and hypocrisy at the camp, and he outwardly notices it and questions it many times, which I greatly appreciated. Those kinds of problems should never go unquestioned.

I thought Nick was a great protagonist in this story. He has to make some hard decisions and we see how he changes because of his choices. And I love that he is obsessed with grammar. I want to see more characters like him in books because actually knowing how to properly use English is so underrated these days.

One of the funniest parts of Jacked Up is when the campers rewrote modern rap songs to be religious. I definitely liked “I like big Bibles and I cannot lie.” The other funniest part was that one scene with way too many donkey jokes that just kept coming. I was actually tearing up from laughter.

I liked the pages in every chapter that had the confessions on them because it gave us more perspective into each of the characters’ lives, and it helped me to sympathize with some of the more unlikeable characters. You can tell that Mrs. Sage has spent a lot of time around teens because the characters’ personalities felt authentic, and the jokes and comments they made were relevant.

I have not read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, but I’d be curious to see if there are any parallels between it and Jacked Up because both Jack and his book play huge rolls in this story.

Overall, Jacked Up is a funny book that delves into some deep topics and ultimately shares an important message about overcoming our battles and not letting the world define us. I think it would be an excellent book for the right audience. I, however, do not believe I was quite the right audience, but only because of my religious sensitivity. I still enjoyed the story though! Honestly, the longer I read the book the more I liked it. And I loved the ending. Nick overcomes issues that have been burdening him for a long time, and so do other campers, and it’s really nice to see the resolution.

“You know how they say eyes are the window to the soul and all that? For me, art is like the door out of my soul. It’s safe to come out that way.”

P.S.: Mrs. Sage, I love you, and you’ve always been my favorite and most influential teacher. I can’t wait to see what books you will write in the future. It is so awesome you were able to tell the story you wanted and get it published for all the world to read, and I’m glad I had the chance to read it.

Review: AN ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE THING by Hank Green

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I knew right from the first paragraph—the first sentence, even—that this was going to be an amazing book. The first sentence sets the tone for the whole story and establishes a very distinct voice for Hank Green, or rather, for April May, one that was so relatable and casual and honest and hilarious.

I honestly had no idea what this book was about when I started it. I only picked it up to read it for the book club at my work, and I really can’t say if I would have read it otherwise or not. I like John Green’s books, but that doesn’t mean his brother’s books are going to be anything similar. While this had both some similarities and some differences from John’s style, I am so glad I read it because I had a downright great time.

April May (that name cracks me up, but I think that’s the point) is a twenty-three-year-old fine arts grad that is just trying to survive in New York City when, one night, she walks by a massive metal statue of a Transformer in samurai armor standing on the sidewalk. She decides that she and her friend Andy need to document it for YouTube. Not expecting anything to come of the video, they go to sleep, only to wake up to sudden internet fame. April May and Andy were the first to discover a Carl, one of sixty-four metal statues that have suddenly appeared in major cities all over the world. The duo decides to embrace this newfound fame as they investigate these new marvels and what their purpose is.

At first, I thought this was a young adult book because I just assumed that Hank would write young adult books like his brother, John, does. But it’s not, really. While the plot is one I could see being in a young adult novel because of its whimsy and adventure, the characters are all graduated from college and in their early twenties. There’s also quite a bit of profanity in here, more than I normally see in young adult, so I guess this is an adult novel after all; however, I think it’s one that readers both young and old would enjoy. Like this book is a great transition into adult books if you read only YA because it still has that young adult feel. The story reads like a contemporary but it’s technically a sci-fi. I think this book would also be a good transition into the more fantastical genres for people who read mostly contemporary because it does feel mostly like a contemporary to me but still has many science fiction elements.

The story was slightly unrealistic at times as far as the convenience that surrounded April: different pieces of the mystery kept falling into her lap as far as fame, money, and people go. It almost felt a little too easy at times, but I’m going to ignore this fact because of how good the overall story was.

I got the feeling that what Green was trying to communicate in his debut novel was his own thoughts and feelings about the prevalence and impact of the social internet and the importance of worldwide collaborative efforts to make a difference in our society. He brings up some very real issues in this story: how fame changes us, how money influences decisions, how hatred spreads so easily online, and how the act of people working together can accomplish something huge. I also got the impression that April May’s experience with internet fame is similar to Hank Green’s own experience, just based on how she was written; it seemed like he was trying to discreetly share some of his struggles with us in a way that will help us better understand him along with other internet-famous people. The book did feel a tiny bit preachy at times. It didn’t bother me, but I did notice it. Again, though, I’m going to ignore this because I really enjoyed the story and the message (even if it was slightly overdone).

The dreams were definitely my favorite parts of the story. [SPOILERS IN ITALICS: I love the idea of a contagious dream, one that you can control and solve clues in. Sign me up! It reminds me a lot of a full-dive virtual reality game (see: Ready Player One), which I’ve always wanted to experience. But I never even been able to have a lucid dream, so there’s probably no hope for me.]

Another piece of this book that I loved was the multimedia aspect that I think enhances any story so much, consisting of tweets, email transcripts, video transcripts, and text messages.

I think Miranda was my favorite character because of her utter nerdiness (I struggled to understand what she was saying half of the time), and I also really enjoyed Andy. I thought April May was a good lead character, but she was an anti-hero of sorts. She made lots of morally grey decisions that led me to ask lots of questions about humanity and the price of fame, etc. Sometimes I couldn’t decide if I should root for April or groan at her or sigh in disbelief at what she was doing.

[SPOILERS IN ITALICS: The only part of this book I didn’t like was the unbelievability of some of it. Not the whole space-aliens-have-invaded-earth bit, but the part where some of the Carls’ clues revolve around popular American music. I mean, these things aren’t even from our planet, and they’ve appeared in major cities across the whole globe, so why is it American music that they use as their clues? Why not a popular Spanish song or Russian song? (I’m aware the song-clues are from English and Canadian artists, but they are still songs that were popular in America, the “dominant” country of the world. I just think it would have been cool to include popular songs that the white populous of the world wouldn’t know but another huge portion of people would.) The whole book feels very American, but it was supposed to be about something happening worldwide. I think maybe that was an oversight on the part of the author.]

There were also some clues that were just too simple or convenient, and that made the story lose a bit of credibility for me. I don’t like when part of the plot seems unrealistic within the boundaries of the world. I have explained before and I’ll say it again that I like stories to be believable within their own realms. You can get as crazy as you want, but once something happens and you just chalk it up to “this is sci-fi; anything can happen” without giving sufficient explanation and background, I’ve lost interest. On top of that, this story was downright weird. I mean it was a good weird, but weird nonetheless. (In the author’s note, Hank does say he wanted to write a book about “a cascade of weirdness that just kept getting weirder,” and I’d say he succeeded.)

I would be very surprised if Hank didn’t write a sequel after that ending [SPOILERS IN ITALICS: when April finally comes back. Where was she all this time and what happened to her? Obviously, Hank Green knows the answers to these questions. Then there’s also the fact that Carl told April, “Your story just started, April May.” What is the story she has to tell? I’m a little disappointed in how vague and unresolved the ending was as far as the Carls go—we still don’t know hardly anything about them or why they chose April for their plan or what that plan is.] I don’t know if I necessarily want a sequel because I prefer standalone novels (and I thought this was a standalone), but I would still be interested in reading another story about the future of April May and Andy and, possibly, Carl.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a purely enjoyable and entertaining novel. I had such a fun time with all these characters as they tried to figure out the mystery behind the Carls. I definitely recommend checking out Hank Green’s debut, and I think he’s an author to keep an eye on in the future. I am very happy that I decided to read this book, and it ultimately brought up a lot of issues in the world today and started an important discussion about them. It’s a novel that left me thinking about its messages hours after I read the last page, and I think that’s the mark of a good book.