[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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Don’t be scared by this book’s title. “Anthropocene” just means the “human-centered historical age.” In this book, John Green gives 5-star reviews to all kinds of things: soda and supermarkets, the internet and pandemics, his favorite songs and a hotdog restaurant in Iceland. The “reviews” are essays which think about history, relationships, his struggles with mental illness and other diseases, science, technology, and more. The fact that each review ends with a rating from 1-5 is clearly a joke.
John Green has several successful educational Youtube channels, does podcasts, runs a few charity organizations, and writes a lot. His novels like The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down were written for young adults, but have been widely appreciated by audiences around the world. He cares a lot about young people and he is very creative and very hopeful, despite it all—which makes it a joy to read his writing.
My two cents: This is not a book for you to read cover-to-cover. Each essay is short, and many contain small jokes or cultural information that may be a little hard to understand. I recommend choosing just one or two chapters to read slowly and enjoy. I think “Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Stickers,” “Diet Dr Pepper,” “Canada Geese,” and “Piggly Wiggly” are comparatively easy to read and enjoy.
