Let me start this review by saying I’m a fan of the vlogbrothers, Hank’s many projects, and John’s books, so when I offer any critique, my goal is not to hate on something. I did like this book; it had many touching and insightful moments, and I loved the points it brought up about the internet and fame. For me, personally, some of the things that I least enjoyed were in the writing technique - but that’s personal preference, and you can judge how you want. Overall, however, this was a heartfelt story with so many great commentaries on humanity.

Things I Liked

1. Discussion of Social Media: The strongest points in this novel were, in my opinion, the moments when April talked about how social media and fame changed her - her personality, her priorities, her daily life, etc. Not all of them were long, drawn-out musings; sometimes there would be a quick moment where Hank would use a phrase that suggested that obsessive checking of twitter was, in fact, not healthy. Honestly, I would have liked to see the book lean into these moments a little more or make them a little more central to the overall narrative.

2. Belief in Humanity: I really loved that despite all the terrible things that happen, April and her friends continue to believe in the goodness of humanity and friendship. Especially nowadays, when that message is so hard to believe for many of us, it was refreshing and offered a bit of hope.

3. Carls: What’s not to love about Carl the robot alien? From its name to the way it decides to interact with humanity (puzzles!), the Carls were a delightful alien race that I’m excited to see more of in the future.

Things I Didn’t Like

1. Prose: While this book does have its funny moments and profoundly beautiful statements, reading it at times felt difficult because a large portion is written either in emotionally-laden internet speech or in dialog. April’s narrative voice is not much different from her speaking voice, and this voice is very close to what I see a lot on tumblr: use of all caps for emphasis and emotion, a particular brand of internet humor, etc. It’s not a bad thing, if you’re used to communicating this way, but for me, the emotion was turned up to 11 all the time, making it difficult to differentiate between ups and downs in the narrative. Side note: it also seemed to me that iterations of the word “weird” was used a lot?

2. Pace: As I said above, there is a lot of dialog in this book, and at times, I felt like information was being conveyed to me via this dialog, or that dialog was drawing out moments that didn’t need to be drawn out.

3. Relationships Between Characters: At one point in time, someone states that April is the center of this story with everyone else just operating in her orbit. I felt like that statement is not just true of the plot of this book, but also in the way the book is constructed. While I loved the characters themselves, a lot of the time, they seemed to only pop up when convenient. I’m thinking specifically of how Andy moves in and out of the story, how April’s family doesn’t really do much other than show the reader that she does have a family, etc. I think this could have been handled better, if Hank wanted to drive home a point about fame being isolating, but as it stands, I felt myself wanting a bit more attention on the relationships, not just what other people were doing for April/the Carls.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in the vlogbrothers, John and Hank Green, science fiction, aliens, first contact stories, social media, the internet, impact of fame, and puzzles.