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A review by ofsevenwaters
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This was so unexpectedly wonderful.
I had been hearing good things about this book, but for some reason I was a little hesitant going in. It’s been probably almost ten years since I read a John Green book! I’ve changed a lot in that time, and I knew that he probably has too, but I didn’t know what to expect—I pay way more attention to writing now than I did when I was 12.
But I was so joyously surprised by this book. It combines Green’s actually beautiful voice with deep dives into random things—my favorite type of non-fiction. Immediately upon picking up this book, I was itching for a pen, because I knew this would be one that I wanted to annotate, to mark my favorite passages and quotes because there were already so many.
I didn’t expect to FEEL so much that I felt reading this book. I also didn’t expect the vulnerability and personal details that Green reveals here—I feel like I respect him so much more as a writer just because now I feel like I know him so much better as a person. In the chapter on sunsets, Green writes about how amazing it is that his dog trusted him enough to reveal his belly, to expose the most vulnerable part of himself and trust that he wouldn’t be hurt. “It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch.” Throughout the course of this book, Green is showing us his belly—it is so incredibly vulnerable and yet it enriches this book in a way I don’t think I can quite explain. The things that he’s reviewing lack meaning without the context of his life, of his emotions and feelings. I’m just going to be thinking about this one for a long time.
And immediately after I finished, I wanted to read it again, or maybe go listen to the podcast that inspired the book. To just be with these words and feel the hope that Green inspires for a moment longer. Maybe I’ll start writing some reviews of my own: but I’ll start here. I give John Green’s ability to make me feel so desperately human, to contextualize this pandemic, to inspire hope in a way that I was needing five stars.
I had been hearing good things about this book, but for some reason I was a little hesitant going in. It’s been probably almost ten years since I read a John Green book! I’ve changed a lot in that time, and I knew that he probably has too, but I didn’t know what to expect—I pay way more attention to writing now than I did when I was 12.
But I was so joyously surprised by this book. It combines Green’s actually beautiful voice with deep dives into random things—my favorite type of non-fiction. Immediately upon picking up this book, I was itching for a pen, because I knew this would be one that I wanted to annotate, to mark my favorite passages and quotes because there were already so many.
I didn’t expect to FEEL so much that I felt reading this book. I also didn’t expect the vulnerability and personal details that Green reveals here—I feel like I respect him so much more as a writer just because now I feel like I know him so much better as a person. In the chapter on sunsets, Green writes about how amazing it is that his dog trusted him enough to reveal his belly, to expose the most vulnerable part of himself and trust that he wouldn’t be hurt. “It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch.” Throughout the course of this book, Green is showing us his belly—it is so incredibly vulnerable and yet it enriches this book in a way I don’t think I can quite explain. The things that he’s reviewing lack meaning without the context of his life, of his emotions and feelings. I’m just going to be thinking about this one for a long time.
And immediately after I finished, I wanted to read it again, or maybe go listen to the podcast that inspired the book. To just be with these words and feel the hope that Green inspires for a moment longer. Maybe I’ll start writing some reviews of my own: but I’ll start here. I give John Green’s ability to make me feel so desperately human, to contextualize this pandemic, to inspire hope in a way that I was needing five stars.