3.5 stars

This is my first book by John Green. For many years I stayed away due to the fact that many people seem to really like him as a person, but not find his work compelling. :(

When I saw he published a nonfiction title, better yet..a collection of essay mainly from the podcast he does...I thought this is my chance to see if I enjoy his writing style! ^^

I think this book is personal for him mainly because it was written in the middle of the pandemic.
The subjects he tackles are varied and unique in their own right: from sunsets to favorite bands and places, from sports to the pandemic and mental health, and from important changes at the global scale to a personal journey he needed to put on paper mainly for himself. :)

This book is beautiful, and reading it, I kept imagining his voice and fragile delivery from crash course literature.

In terms of content I loved about a third of essays, liked another, and I was mildly interested in the rest.
Here are some of my favorite chapters: 
-Humanity's Temporal Range
-Halley's Comet
-Lascaux Cave Paintings
-Teddy Bears
-Air-Conditioning
-<b>Sunsets</b>
-<b>Pinguins of Madagascar</b>
-<b>Auld Lang Syne</b>
-<b>Googling Strangers</b>
If you have a copy of the book at hand, you can see that I connected with the first part of the book more...which is not a bad thing. I just vibe with some of the subjects of interest for him, not all. ^_^

I highly recommend this collection of essays if you need something meditative, or are in the mood this reflect on serious subject matters for short periods of time.
In the end, I'm not sure I will ever read more from him, certainly not his earlier work..but a similar project as "The Anthropocene reviewed" will appeal to me.:)
One things is sure...I loved his authorial voice! If you enjoy hearing him talk, give this book a try!

Enjoy

this one is definitely going to be in my top 5 books this year for sure.

there’s just something about talking about things so mundane but have had such a profound impact on your life that really unsettles you, just for a moment. part of it being mundane usually means its insignificant enough to not warrant much attention, but then there are moment where they mark so MANY points in our lives. from teddy bears to sunsets to a hot dog eating contest, green’s life has been touched by so much and he still has so many more experiences to make.

i’m not generally a fan of his other stuff because of the way mass consumption turned his works into romanticism of various mental illnesses and yet this was raw. he held nothing back. he opened himself up and discussed how these little things really affected him during the lowest and highest points of his life. that’s exceedingly brave. and he absolutely should get his flowers for this book.

this felt like a diary and a hug wrapped into one. i loved it.

5 stars! (:

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Perspective: 5 stars

 - Honestly, who gave John Green the right? Who let him make me experience the fullness of the human condition via audiobook?
- So many essays in this book had me thinking, oh this will be silly. Rating the Disney Hall of Presidents? This will be a laugh. Yes, but then he'll take a roundabout through a seemingly unrelated anecdote and suddenly you're crying while commuting to work.
- I do think a lot of the power of this book comes from the fact that Green wrote much of it during the early stages of the pandemic, and he frequently references that in the text. But it also adds more layers to the essays, helping to bring our current moment into the context of the whole of human history (whether or not that makes you feel better about the state of things...I'm not sure).
- I do recommend the audiobook for this, as Green puts so much emotion into his reading. Plus, you must hear the call of the extinct bird included in one of the essays. I hear the print version has additional notes, though, so I'll be checking that out as well. 

Thanks John I cried a bunch, underlined a fuckton of quotes, and feel strangely proud of John to have come all the way to this book. For anyone who needs a reminder that sustained, caring, and hopeful attention is the only thing that matters, really.

This waxed and waned but had many beautiful moments and interesting facts I’ll be thinking about for a while.

I could hear John's voice in my head while reading this book. Simultaneously sad and anxious and hopeful, it felt very comforting to me; exactly what I needed right now. Medium-paced most of the time, but also slow-paced, on occasion.

Probably like others before me, I give the Anthropocene Reviewed five stars.

the irony of leaving a 5 star scale review on a book that has so much commentary on the 5 star scale is not lost on me, and initially I didn't want to review it for that reason, but I loved it so much that I felt like I should tell you all that. My relationship with John Green as an author goes back almost 10 years. I've always loved his books, his Tumblr posts, and to borrow a line from TFIOS, I would read his grocery lists. Through his fiction he has always captured humanity through such a beautiful and sometimes ugly lense and so when I found out he was coming out with essays on the human condition, I was signed up immediately. It did exactly what I thought it would do. It brought me comfort, made me cry, made me laugh...specifically the chapters "Auld Lang Syne" and "Sycamore Tree" really got me. He reviews things that seem trivial like Dr. Pepper and then a chapter later he's talking about the meaning of life itself. I've really never read anything like this and at the same time I feel like I've read this before because the person who wrote it seems so familiar to me.

For its insight, it's softness in this rough time, and for keeping me company when I can't sleep at night, I give John Green's the anthropocene reviewed 5 stars.