I don't much like John Green's fiction. I don't actively DISlike it, but it always seems to be a bit too light on the plot and characterization end and too heavy handed on the philosophical end. They're fine if not a bit heady, but John Green was made for nonfiction. We love his Crash Courses, his YouTube videos, his real life advocacy, and his podcasts. And this is that. Even down to its cadence and organization, this is just John Green having a highly consumable conversation with the reader that also helps them feel more encouraged about this life, even despite the many moments that suggest we should be panicking, even despite the occasional, poorly-veiled social advocacy moments.. He delivers a peacful philosophy despite it all. This is officially a new favorite book of mine. I need to go get a physical copy now.

While I don't include audiobook performance in my star rating of a book itself, I have the unique experience here of being able to critique the same person twice. Because John Green is an incredibly gifted speaker, and because I believe that audiobooks voiced by the author themselves have the potential to be the best of their kind, there's nothing about this narration that didn't hit the mark. I give John Green reading his own book the Anthropocene Reviewed... 5 stars.

Formatting would have benefited greatly with the use of footnotes, which in turn would have helped with pacing and flow.

I found myself reading an essay or two about topics I had varying levels of interest in, and on to the next essay I would read the title and often put the book down because I had had enough of the meandering stream of consciousness associations for that session.

There were some things that I found value in, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea.