Hank Green

This book was far blunter in stating political opinion than its predecessor. It was very obvious when the plot just functions as a backdrop to talk about political ideas.
While I think most of the first book's arguments were very hard to dispute as they, for the most part, just pointed out observable social dynamics in an engaging way, this book sticks its neck out way further in its political discussion and makes a few controversial assumptions.

Beyond its extended social discussion, this book felt very much like a repetition of the first book but with classically raised stakes. This is something I loved about the first book. While there were a lot of ominous global events going on, the plot itself didn't have concrete stakes beyond individual people's well-being. This book felt a lot more formulaic in comparison.
Andy's struggle very much felt like a repetition of the pitfalls of having power and influence but in a far less nuanced way than April had in the first book.
The entire book was very blunt about its messages and left little to be discovered by the reader.
It also had far less moral ambiguity. The entire plot became a rather black and white affair very quickly.

While a lot of the tools the author used in his first book were quite novel and worked very well, a lot of them were overused in this book. Too much of a good thing and all that. One that was particularly noticeable was the unreliable narrator. Despite it not being used for an actual twist this time, the constant back and forth got old fast. "Now I am going to tell you everything, just kidding, I left this out but now I am going to be entirely honest, got you, I'll amend this other thing now, entirely out of order, etc."… (mer)

Suddenly, in cities all over the world, these weird, impossible, motionless giant... samurai robot statue things?... have appeared. One of the first people to encounter one, a young woman named April May, uploads a video about it to her friend's YouTube channel, and finds herself in the middle of something, well, absolutely remarkable.

This book delighted me almost immediately. The writing was fun, funny, breezy, and irreverent. The main character was quirky, but human-feeling. And the story itself promised to be thoroughly bonkers, in a deeply entertaining way. That level of delight turned out to be a little difficult to sustain, though, and while the writing remains mostly breezy and the plot not just bonkers but increasingly bonkers, it ends up taking a more earnest turn, focusing on the way social media polarizes society and on the complicated impact that internet fame inevitably has on people. It handles this stuff all right, in a nuanced if not exactly subtle way, but it is, y'know... less delightful. And increasingly it became clear that there was no possible actually satisfying ending to the increasingly bonkers plot (although the general approach that Hank Green takes with it is probably the best one he could have opted for, at least).

Even if I feel like it doesn't entirely live up to the promise of the first few chapters, though, it's still an entertaining and relevant read.… (mer)