An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Title: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Author: Hank Green
Publisher: Dutton
Publish Date: September 25, 2018
Rating: 📖📖📖.5 / 5

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a sci-fi/realistic story of instant fame and how it can affect someone. Even by looking at the cover, you can tell a robot will play a big role. April May discovers a giant robot in New York City and makes a video about her discovery with her best friend which instantly goes viral. But April discovers she is not alone in her find as there are many other robots, which she names Carl, all around the world. The discovery will bring out the best and worst of humanity while the world figures out why the Carls have arrived.

Hank Green, brother of John Green of The Fault in Our Stars fame, has given us a look into the world of a social media star. Through April we discover the positives and consequences of living a life online. Written in the first person, we find that April has always wanted to be more than a struggling art student and when she finds Carl she finally gets a chance to be something more. We find that fame is not only fun and games, but can be a beast that we aren't prepared for and don't always respond well to. In that way, Green does a good job of critiquing the direction our society is headed.

There are major flaws though in the story. One of those is the writing style. As much as I wanted to like the first person, social media style of the book. it ultimately took away from the story. I found that April's interjections through off the flow of the story. I often found myself cringing when I ran up against moments where April acts like a child. I know she isn't supposed to be more than in her early twenties, but there are moments when she just acts like a total child and these are points where the story seems to drop off. I would normally roll my eyes at these moments and wish for the story to move forward.

Overall, Green does do a decent job of touching on the negatives of the internet world as well as describing moments that leave you with hope for humanity. I would recommend this book for any reader, especially those who can suspend reality enough to believe that one day giant robots could be watching our every move.

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Sandstorm by James Rollins

Title: Sandstorm
Author: James Rollins
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publish Date: June 29th, 2004
Rating: 📖📖📖.5/5

Sandstorm starts with a bang! Literally. An explosion rocks the London Museum and leaves confusion in its wake. Teams from around the world, both for good and bad, race to find the cause of the explosion. At the heart is a source of enormous power just waiting to be harnessed deep within the Arabian Peninsula.  Painter Crowe, leader of Sigma Force, is on the case with help from the the museum staff and friends to find answers to the explosion before a rival group, The Guild, can get their hands on it.

Sandstorm is book one of the Sigma Force series by Rollins and, in my opinion, starts the series off well. I had accidentally read a couple later books in the series and had to start from the beginning. Sandstorm sets up the idea of Sigma Force well and is a good introduction into what will happen later through the series. As I've said before in other reviews, books that take place in museums are usually an instant hook for me. From the beginning pages, the book kept me hooked. There were times when the story was slow and seemed to drag, but there was enough action pieced in to keep the reader interested.

This book has a good balance between science, action, and character building. James Rollins makes his characters and storyline easier to understand than many other writers in the same genre. All in all, this book is a good entry into what I hope will be a good series!

#reading #books #jamesrollins #sandstorm #harpercollins #londonmuseum #arabianpeninsula #mrsmadonnareads #justfinished