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A review by justjonsbooks
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
3.0
— • 3.5 • —
Nearly everyone would die, then things would get interesting!’
Maybe 3 stars is harsh because this was really good! The weird and worrying questions were definitely the funniest and my favourite parts. Some of them I wish he had actually answered properly though because as disturbing as they were, I was pretty interested in a few of them! I also loved the answer to ‘What would happen if the sun went out?’ where he lists stupidly funny benefits instead of the obvious ‘the end of the world’.
The reason I haven’t rated it higher for now is because while it was fun to listen to in the moment, I found it hard to absorb much of the information being said. This is probably down to me doing other things while listening to the audiobook, but some answers hurt my head and I found myself zoning out either because I simply wasn’t interested in the subject or because it was about something so absurd that there was no reason for my brain to hold the information. Especially since there were so many different random questions and scenarios, upon writing this review only a week later I sadly can’t recollect many of them.
Perhaps it was simply an information overload for me which made it lose some charm. Something like this would probably have been better to read a few chapters at a time so I could think them over and have fun discussions about them with friends and family. Some could also make for excellent YouTube videos!
Nearly everyone would die, then things would get interesting!’
Maybe 3 stars is harsh because this was really good! The weird and worrying questions were definitely the funniest and my favourite parts. Some of them I wish he had actually answered properly though because as disturbing as they were, I was pretty interested in a few of them! I also loved the answer to ‘What would happen if the sun went out?’ where he lists stupidly funny benefits instead of the obvious ‘the end of the world’.
The reason I haven’t rated it higher for now is because while it was fun to listen to in the moment, I found it hard to absorb much of the information being said. This is probably down to me doing other things while listening to the audiobook, but some answers hurt my head and I found myself zoning out either because I simply wasn’t interested in the subject or because it was about something so absurd that there was no reason for my brain to hold the information. Especially since there were so many different random questions and scenarios, upon writing this review only a week later I sadly can’t recollect many of them.
Perhaps it was simply an information overload for me which made it lose some charm. Something like this would probably have been better to read a few chapters at a time so I could think them over and have fun discussions about them with friends and family. Some could also make for excellent YouTube videos!