Casey’s Reviews

Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

(and some commonplace ones, like bisexuality)

The author reviewing Hank Green’s debut novel on YouTube in November, 2018

Welcome to Reviewsday Tuesday! Today’s pick is An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. Parts of this review appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Bi Women Quarterly and a November 2018 YouTube video.

As my first post in the Reviewsday Tuesday publication on Medium, I wanted to choose a book that connected back to the origins of Reviewsday. Hank Green coined “Reviewsday Tuesday” in a video on Vlogbrothers.

I’ve always been a big fan of Vlogbrothers, a YouTube channel run by John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and other bestselling novels, and Hank Green, science educator and entrepreneur. Hank’s debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, is a new adult sci-fi that will appeal to readers of YA. There is also a sequel that released in 2020, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, which I have not yet read.

Plot Summary (no spoilers)

The plot of AART is complex but very easy to follow. In alternate-2018 where an HRC-like character is POTUS, April May, an art school grad working for a start-up in New York, stumbles a 10-foot-tall robot outside Chipotle at 3AM and, mistaking it for an art installation (or perhaps an ingenious marketing ploy for the next Transformers movie), films a funny YouTube video interviewing the creature she names “Carl.” April, her friend Andy, and “New York Carl” become an overnight sensation. While the book is ostensibly a First Contact narrative with elements of both hard and soft sci-fi, it really becomes about the social internet, fame, and the dangers of feeding the trolls.

It turns out that 64 other “Carls” simultaneously appeared in cities around the world, and everyone wants to know: Where did the Carls come from? What are they made of? What do they want? Are they aliens?

April can’t answer these questions, yet is the world’s foremost expert on the topic and finds herself in the middle of crazy conspiracy theories as a result. People think maybe she’s an alien, she’s in cahoots with the government, maybe it’s a marketing ploy… basically she’s suddenly all over TV and everyone wants a piece of her.

Representation

One of the things that was most exciting to me, as someone who writes bisexual books, is that the main character of this book, April May, is bisexual and willing to say it!

Of all the surprises in the novel, the protagonist’s bisexuality was one I would never have predicted. Green seamlessly incorporates April’s queerness into the plot without it seeming like tokenism. As her notoriety grows and she is increasingly in demand for interviews, April is pressured by a publicist to frame herself as a lesbian, rather than bisexual, to make her more “palatable” to her audience, which (not to be too spoilery) comes back to bite April when she’s accused of being “fake”. The biphobia of this moment is acknowledged and explored in a genuine way, which, in a book by a straight cis man, is delightfully unexpected. April’s sexuality, rather than being treated as a novelty or a joke, is probably the least remarkable thing about her — and it’s treated as such!

If I had to nitpick, there are a few things Green gets wrong; for example, April comes close to falling into the “slutty bisexual” stereotype of being attracted to nearly everyone her age. Likewise, for someone so well-versed on the social internet, Green’s privileged position shines through when it comes to his portrayal of online harassment.

Despite being a woman on the internet (and a queer woman, no less!), April manages to avoid any of the gendered harassment that a young woman cast suddenly into online stardom would inevitably receive. Despite nailing other issues — Green knows the ins and outs of the internet — the novel glosses over elements of internet culture that, even in a world with Madam President at the helm, would have made going viral even more difficult for April.

That being said, Hank Green does something in An Absolutely Remarkable Thing that in most novels would have readers running for the hills — he lets his protagonist make the wrong choice again and again. April’s missteps are frustrating, but they are what make her so engaging. Readers will love to hate April May as she self-sabotages her relationships with important allies, follows bad advice, and fumbles her way forward.

Themes

The book is a meditation on what internet celebrity looks like in the 21st century and what it means to be so public a figure that you no longer have a private life:

The world knows everything about you and is constantly monitoring your activity and judging your every move.

It’s really easy to read this book as an allegory for what Hank and John must have gone through when they unexpectedly rose to stardom through Vlogbrothers and created a community, Nerdfigheria. April forms her own online community around what’s called the Dream, a series of puzzles that ostensibly stem from Carl and must be solved collectively by humanity.

Green translates pressing real-world issues into the fantastic events of AART, such as when April posts a ranting retaliation video after being challenged by a radical conservative man. Afterward, she thinks,

“I had no idea of this then, but by engaging with him, I was affirming him and his wackos. Their ideas were getting more exposure through my larger audience, and I (and, of course, every news channel out there) was confirming the idea that there were two sides you could be on. It was a huge mistake, and also great for views.”

Like a punch to the gut, this moment will resonate with contemporary readers everywhere, even in 2023.

Timely and topical, Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is well-written, has a really authentic voice, and asks you to consider deep, philosophical questions about what it means to be human. It also asks us to remember that celebrities are humans and that they have lives outside of their Internet persona. In sum, the novel offers important social commentary wrapped up in the gift of a unique sci-fi plot. The added bonus of unexpected bi representation in an otherwise “mainstream” book is just icing; I’m excited to add April to my short (but ever-expanding) list of bisexual characters in mainstream media, and I’m looking forward to reading second book, because this book definitely ends on a cliffhanger.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a fantastic debut novel and makes me feel proud to have been part of Nerdfighteria. I’ll end this review with one of my favorite quotations from the book. This moment happens at a moment of very high tension in the plot:

I drop back into my presenting voice, strong and bold, even though it hurts. “As I was saying, even on the most terrible of days, even when the worst of us are all we can think of, I am proud to be a human.”