It's been awhile since I've read a novel, and I feel absolutely spoilt to have this be my return to reading (or listening). And I’m grateful to know the next book is out in summer 2020, as now I know why my wife wanted to discuss the ending! No spoilers. Mostly because they’re a string, as opposed to a protagonist. But the complex tones around fame, social media, humanity, politics - you just totally overlook the fact ‘aliens’ are in any way part of the plot.

I usually avoid anything sci-fi, as it’s just not my thing. Just that my wife wanted to discuss the ending and therefore I needed to read it. I bought this without really knowing what it was about.

Narrated with the most accessible and emotive American accent I’ve heard in a while, this really is something you’re going to want to listen to without stopping. Initially thinking it could be a traffic entertainer, expecting it to take a few weeks to claw through, I found myself sitting outside our flat listening, not wanting to escape the next line of words. My wife suggested I read this, and a year later I still hadn’t gathered the strength to open the first edition hard back we had on the bookshelf, so thought I’d see if it was available on audible. Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are but what they want from us.Ĭompulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social Internet is changing fame, rhetoric and radicalisation how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty and how vilification and adoration spring from the same dehumanisation that follows a life in the public eye. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world - everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires - and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the centre of an intense international media spotlight. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship - like a 10-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor - April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. Coming home from work at three a.m., 23-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. In his much-anticipated 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 realising she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagined.

An absolutely remarkable thing 2