"I know that sometimes moving fast and breaking things is how progress gets made. but its also how things get broken, and sometimes those things are people."
published: 2020
pages: 449
read: 8/9-24/2020
book: 67 in 2020
April May and the Carls are back in the much-anticipated sequel to Hank Green's #1 New York Times bestselling debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.
The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories.
Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online about the world post-Carl; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda infiltrates a new scientific operation . . . one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension.
As they each get further down their own paths, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers; unexplained internet outages; and more—which seem to suggest April may be very much alive. In the midst of the gang's possible reunion is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality.
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It’s a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions. How will we live online? What powers over our lives are we giving away for free? Who has the right to change the world forever? And how do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?
The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories.
Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online about the world post-Carl; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda infiltrates a new scientific operation . . . one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension.
As they each get further down their own paths, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers; unexplained internet outages; and more—which seem to suggest April may be very much alive. In the midst of the gang's possible reunion is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality.
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It’s a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions. How will we live online? What powers over our lives are we giving away for free? Who has the right to change the world forever? And how do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?
THOUGHTS
hhhmmmm.......i liked this one but if im being honest, it was a bit tough on me.
what does this classify under? like scifi? idk. but whatever it was, since its not something i usually read, it took me a while to get into.
it wasnt bad at all.
its just all me.
its a good read and very relevant in today's times given all the shit that we are currently and have been going through and i mean, i really couldnt have read it at a better time. i just wish i would have been more in the moment with it.
"im trying to show you how good my brain was at convincing me that i never belonged where i was. these are the lies that our brains tells us to push happiness out of reach."
...either way, ima keep this short cause i really don't know what to say other than i liked it but it was kind of a heavy-ish read for me and if im being honest, i think this put me in a bit of a reading funk cause it took so much of me to read it. while i am glad that i read it, maybe 2020 wasnt the year for me to read this.
(im doing suuuuuch a horrible job on this one. lol. but im doing this one emotionally i guess......)
"For me it goes without saying that much of the dogma of many religions is harmful. thinking other people will burn forever because they love the wrong person or worship the wrong god hos done a whole lot of bad."
anyway, jump over for b a s i c spoilers.
thanks for reading! (:
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SPOILERS
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uhm, its been a while so ill just get to the basics.
it turns out that April did die but Carl saves her and rebuilds her.
her GF Maya was insistent that April was still alive and went on a search and eventually finds her. (they weren't together at this time but they do end up together in the end!)
turns out Carl is good.
and he has a brother who is bad.
carl was sent to complete a mission but "failed" so then his brother came in and tries to take over.
Andy gets invited into this like mystery internet thing where there are 11 (12?) people in a group but only #1 knows who everyone is. their job essentially is to out all of the bad people in the world.
Miranda, the scientist, gets a job interview and then the job, at Peters island science lab in who knows where. she gets there, gets the job and then gets locked into the VR world that she works for except she doesn't know it until she's been in there for a while. carls bad bro is keeping her locked up.
let me back up a bit cus im going all over the place:
after the dreams, there was this VR kinda thing invented where you basically go in and do whatever you want.
the point of this thing is: whatever it is you want to do, you can.
you can pop in other people's memories into your own brain. so if you want to learn the piano, boom! look it up! there it is, you can learn it in a few minutes (hours?)
Andy gets hooked on that.
what miranda learns is that where she is working at, the thing that andy is hooked on, is actually a human brain farming thing. like they are literally stripping peoples minds in order to give people these experiences.
Peter P is running all this. except, its not really him. its bad carl that's doing all this. AND i should note that the #1 of Andy's group is actually carl's bad brother.
in the end, the gang manages to buy 51% of the stock of whatever this is so they can shut it down. and April comes out in the open about what the fuck was going on.
and tbh, theres a whole lot more i left out and im sure that there's a lot i butchered up there but its been 4 months since i read this book so im surprised i even remember all that.
as always, IF i ever re-read, i will do an updated spoiler review.
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