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Book Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
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An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: A Novel by Hank Green
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON
In his wildly entertaining debut novel, Hank Green—cocreator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow—spins a sweeping, cinematic tale about a young woman who becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she’s part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagined.
The Carls just appeared.
Roaming through New York City 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 best 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—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.
Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure 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 for the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye. The beginning of an exciting fiction career, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a bold and insightful novel of now.
MY REVIEW
We need more April in the World.
I found this an uncomfortable read in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders in America. I read this July 8, 2020.
“This is the first time a truly international issue had hit our newly borderless world this hard, and no one knew how it might play out.” (page 215 / 65% mark on my kindle)
Copyright 2018. Meaning written no later than 2017. I would say far earlier for a first work, but Mr. Green had major connections.
So many things of this book follow what we are experiencing right now. Social media connections around the world, people using fear as a weapon to raise themselves up and attack other people for a cause, and the need to problem-solve WORLD-WIDE because no one person, no one country has the whole thing sewn up.
It is like a huge metaphor for what is happening right now. Of course, it was meant to use a sci-fi setting to explore insta-fame, relationships, and a variety of day-to-day questions. It’s more a literary work than a genre work.
We are now in a borderless world, but various entities are fighting to reestablish barriers. Some governments try building walls and fences, others locking people out electronically and physically, and still others are removing themselves from treaties and world-wide organizations. But, like in WWII, doing so just mean those barriers will fall at the worst possible time. Children don’t get to climb back into the crib; the world always gets bigger … and scarier.
All of this is in the book, only it isn’t. The subtext hit me hard, making me put down the book several times. If I wasn’t on a deadline for a book club in less than three days, I likely would have set it aside. To recover. But I pushed through in a single day.
The story is there. And I *think* some people can just focus on the story. Which is a problem-solving, literary exploration of fame, science-fiction drama. I just couldn’t see it well through the life I am living right now.
But I do agree with the character, even after one of the worst attacks on her person, she still sent out Hope. Even when fear should have been winning, she tried to make things Better. More inclusive – even for selfish reason – her message was about Building and Growing. In that, I would like to see more April in the world.
(Checked out through the local library system as an eBook. Vivat local libraries!)
Flash: The Ancient Vitz Tree 2
Photo by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash
With fruit juices running down his face, Sharles joined Damonia in the shade of one of the Vitz tree’s children. She curled her hand around the watch, tucking it into her skirts. He collapsed backwards onto the moss and leaves.”That is the best fruit ever.”
Damonia nodded, then realized he had his eyes closed for daydreaming, she stammered a nonsense reply, “So juicy.”
“I know, right?” Sharles rolled over on his side to smile at her, opening his bark brown eyes. “The mix of sweet and sour is perfect, a bite of bitter when you get to the core. I’m not going to eat ever again.” He ran his tongue around his face, getting the last of the sticky juices.
Damonia laughed at his antics. “Until the Vitz day feast is served at sunset.”
“There is that.” Rolling back on his back, he rubbed his flat stomach. “I feel full right now. Not stuffed, just satisfied. No cravings for squirrel or snap-vines. No cravings, wants, or wishes.”
Sharles had been a well without bottom since he started shooting up three winters ago, going from the shortest in their age group to taller than most of the adults in the village and he was still growing. Damonia was one of the people shoving food at him, smuggling in extra snap-vines from her forest walks with the herbal women. The limited communal dinners portioned out by the Imman Priests from the capital would have left him skin and bones. Some days Damonia was grateful for her small stature, though most days she envied the clown’s stretched height.
“What about a kiss from Quessing?”
Sharles head snapped sideways. “Shh. She’ll hear you.”
“Nah, she is stuck on the child side of the tree for another year.” Damonia rubbed a thumb over the leaves engraved along the edges of the watch. “Sucks for you. No more kisses until she is fruited.”
Her friend leaned his head back. “Thirteen months. Then we can get married.”
“Oh, you asked?” The new adult raised her eyebrows.
A blush took both of Sharles cheeks. “Yes,” he muttered quietly, “last week when the Priests left after harvest with the taxes.”
Robins dropped into their shade joining them, the slight shine of eaten fruit decorating her cheeks. “What happened last week?”
“Sharles and Quessing promised.” Damonia reported.
Standing over his sister draped against the raised roots of the Vitz, Hickory nodded at Sharles. “Congratulations.” His right hand stroked the green-handle of the leaf-engraved machete he received five years ago from the Ancient Vitz Tree, something he kept hidden from the priests. He always looked lost during the farming season, his hand reaching for the empty space on his belt, just as lost as Council Froszen and Minister Grey did when they hid their Vitz gifts.
The modern Imman religion brought in when the Empire annexed the Forest Realm thirty years ago did not approve of alternative gods, especially trees treated as gods. Only the magic stored within the Vtiz fruit held their hand from burning the milimum old orchard to the ground. Instead they sent out soldiers, because the priesthood and the army were one and the same to the Holy Emperor and his Sacred Governor Heirs, to watch over the towns with Vitz tree groves, and every single fruit harvested from those groves were transported to the Forest Realm’s capital and then sent out to the wizard enclaves of the Empire.
Silly soldiers thought the Vitz trees were limited to seasons like normal trees, but the Ancient mothers only heeded the cycle of seasons when they wanted to. Even the decades old Vitz tree the new adults were sheltering under could drop a fruit into Damonia’s lap if she asked it to, one or two nut brown fruits hiding among the leaves above them waiting for a need could be brought to bright green and gold ripeness in an instant.
Hickory’s eyes narrowed as he observed the collapsed new adults throughout the town, many visiting from the nearby villages for the Elder tree ceremony, and her careful braced sitting against the tree. “Damonia?” his voice rose in a question.
Her eyes snapped up. He observed her clean face. “Did you …” Hickory cut his words short at the fear in her eyes. Is that what he looked like holding the machete two years ago? He had seen a small round object land in her hands and assumed she was going to have a normal life. Healthier than most thanks to the Ancient’s gift of a golden fruit, but normal.
Only two others in the town had special fruit, nearly twenty years apart. The Mayor’s rope and Council’s cane served them well over the decades. Hickory had learned there were others, but the gifts come with questions and quests, and the quests they went on … well, few returned. Loners usually, rarely missed by the grove. A seed sent out to protect the forest.
But the two of them, Damonia and him, getting their gifts so close together was practically unheard of. She was the more quiet of the two of them, but still, he wouldn’t characterize her as a loner.
He walked over to her and reached out his arm to her. “Come on.”
She stared at it like it was a snake-thorn vine, and she was debating how to puck the leaves safely. Sighing, she grasped it and let him pull her up.
Standing close together, he looked down at the diminutive adult. “Show me.” he whispered.
She opened her hand to reveal a beautiful watch, their bodies hiding the artifact from anyone nearby.
Metal. Like his gift. That means a quest. Always.
He hadn’t felt the need to leave. He hadn’t had a direction. According to the histories the gifted adults kept, the drive to go on a quest could take years to arrive. He hoped to stretch that out to never; he wasn’t the change-the-world type. Now, with this, he knew better. Because Damonia could change the world if she put her mind to it. She just needed someone at her back.
“Ungood,” he muttered.
“I know,” she responded, “and it’s vibrating now. I think it’s time.”
(words 1,031, first published 3/4/2023)
The Ancient Vitz Tree Series
The Ancient Vitz Tree (4/26/2020)
The Ancient Vitz Tree 2 (2/5/2023)
Magical Words: Capacity
Photo by Natalie Grainger on Unsplash
It’s tax season and every day is get up; figure out which office I’m assigned to and get to work; work, work, work. Get home; do a survival chore (dishes, laundry, groceries, etc.); slip in some writing; and at least one thing for my other gigs (edit, review, read). Go, go, go. Remember to eat and sleep, because I’m in a marathon and I can’t fall down because I forgot basic chores for keeping the body running.
I’m at capacity. Especially right now when W-2 are landing in mail boxes every day.
My cup overflows.
John G. Hartness wrote a Magical Words post on October 3, 2016 about “Managing Your Capacity.”
Right now, my capacity isn’t dedicated to writing. Basically six months of the combination of package then tax season, then a calmer six months of conventions with some gig work. During the Convention season, writing and editing will increase.
Mr. Hartness points out your capacity changes, and that is okay. Work with your creative energy to get big projects done with big energy and small projects done with small energy. Right now, I got small creative energy, but that works just fine for putting up a blog.
Again the URL is: http://www.magicalwords.net/john-hartness-2/making-money-mondays-managing-your-capacity/
Art: Political Memes
I recently stepped down as a Soil and Water Board member for my state. I ran for it because I believe more women should be on the ballot and I put my money where my mouth was (literally, did you know you have to pay to be put on the ballot?). I was rather shocked I won, but I finished serving my four years in the office.
My next political cause is getting minimum wage and tipped minimum wage raised a bit. For my state, $10 is the effective minimum wage – fast food can’t get people for less than that. So when I write letters, that is all I’m asking for. I’m writing a letter a week then personalizing them for my North Carolina House Representative, my NC Senate Legislator, my Federal NC House Representative, and my two Federal NC Senators. Plus I’m making a meme to post on Facebook.
Here is the pack so far:
And here are some political memes I’ve made previously, just in case you ever wonder where I stand on issues. Human Beings are Human Beings.
