Despite the book’s title, few of these essays actually discuss the impact of human activity on geology, climate, or environment. Instead, Green appears to be using the term “Anthropocene” as a synonym for “modern culture,” and “Anthropocene Reviewed” as a pretense for pulling together a series of essays that don’t otherwise appear to have much in common. Some of the essays do focus on what you might call “Anthropocene-adjacent” topics like history, nature, science/technology, and anthropology. But the vast majority of the essays are biographical - personal anecdotes, travels, mental/physical health challenges, favorites (favorite song, soccer team, soda, video game, etc.) - creating the overall impression of an episodic memoir rather than “essays on a human centered planet.”

Having said that, I suspect most people won’t mind the “bait and switch.” The essays are stuffed with engagingly nerdy trivia (the history of Edmund Halley, the evolution of the QWERTY keyboard, the antecedents of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ the origin story of teddy bears), funny stories (his brief career as an Academic Dacathalete), and nostalgia (scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers!). And goodness knows Green’s an engaging writer (as sales of his novels would suggest): honest, empathetic, and ultimately hopeful.

Green’s “gimmick” is to end each essay with a kitschy “1-5 star” rating: the city of Indianapolis gets 4 stars; Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, two stars; etc. Works well enough for essays that are about things, but begins to feel strained/labored when applied to essays that are mostly about ideas or emotions (“What’s the meaning of life? How does one find hope in the midst of despair?”) Admit Green’s more philosophical essays left me cold. There’s nothing overtly off-putting about Green’s “how lucky we all are to be alive!” affirmations, but neither did I find them to be particularly original, insightful, or convincing.

Apparently Green penned most of these essays during the height of the pandemic, and that’s the vibe I got: that Green’s basically taking us with him on a stream-of-consciousness journey through months of inactivity-spawned contemplations and reflections, augmented by internet research, more-or-less relevant diversions, and lots (and lots) of literary quotations. The result is a rather uneven collection, and definitely not what I expected based on the title/summary, but ultimately found more here to like than dislike. ( )

I liked it ( )

this book is boring asf, 0/10, do not recommend. ( )

I began this book back in January, when I was working more strongly on my 32-books-for-the-year challenge and had already solidly finished three. I intended to finish the book within a couple of weeks, though that never came to fruition as varying motivation took my pace away.

Further delay on finishing this read came in the form of being broken up with by my partner one day before our six-month anniversary. It is difficult to write about the ensuing grief, being in the middle of it, but I try just the same; if John Green could write this book in the middle of the Anthropocene, and so many reviews talking about the pandemic while he was in the midst of the worst of it, then I can write this review in the midst of my grief. (And it was my mistake that led to the breakup, anyhow -- I can afford myself no luxuries and no feeling that I am a victim in need of comfort.)

In Mr. Green's last review of the book (at least, before the postscripts, which are followed by two more written after the book's first publication), one of an August Sander photograph called Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, he discusses how the subjects of the photo were mere weeks away from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the plunging of their country of Germany into World War I. He explains that the picture is about both knowing and not knowing. "You know you're on your way to a dance, but don't know you're on your way to a war. The picture is a reminder that you never know what will happen to you, to your friends, to your nation. [...] And that reminds us there is also a horizon we cannot see past."

In starting this book, I knew that I was on my way to the end of another book, but I did not know that I was on my way to the void that I am now trying to crawl out of. I still do not know when or how I will make it out of this void, yet I know I will not come out of it the same person I was before. Mr. Green mentioned in his review of the photograph that one of the three farmers was killed in the war, and the other two were injured (one three times) but survived the war anyhow, though changed because of it. But I have faith that I will get through this, as I have gotten through so many other things in my life, and this book has been help towards that goal.

I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five stars. ( )

Listening to this audiobook at work with a toilet brush in-hand, Green's chapter on the now-extinct Kaua’i ō’ō’s had me dissolving over a hotel toilet bowl. Green’s empathy colors even his darker observations with sweet flecks of human connection. How he manages this with chapters on hot dogs, Mario Kart, and a foreign soccer team is exactly why it’s so worth the read. ( )