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. ( )

This is a book of essays on any and everything. Everybody I listen to (my vloggers) love this book. Truthfully, I found many of his essays not interesting to me. Basically, I found it a tedious read, and I am surely in the minority. ( )

I enjoyed this book even more than I thought I would. Ive been a fan of John Green's for a while, but this was so unlike any media of his I've ever consumed before - a profound insight into humanity, its ups and downs, and where each and every 9ne of us little humans fits into the grand scheme of things. This book was a brutal reminder of the reality of our existence, how we're changing the Earth (and not for the better)... but it also left me with hope. Hope for what we are and what we can become. It showed the good in humanity as well as the bad. And in line with John's rating system, I give hope for humanity five stars. ( )