I am a big fan of John Green's online educational content, however his earlier fiction works were never really my jam. After listening to The Anthropocene Reviewed on audio from my library I immediately ordered 3 copies of the hardback book: one for an end of the school-year gift for a coworker, one for a friend who is feeling sort of lost right now, and one for me to keep and love and look at. 

The concept of this book would be entirely charming even if you removed everything else about the book that makes it wonderful. John identifies an aspect of the Anthropocene (our current geological age), which could be a song, a concept, a medication, or literally anything else, and rates it on a 5-star scale. While explaining how he experiences each chosen topic, John shares the struggles and joys of his life. I highly recommend everyone read this as soon as possible because, though much of the book was written as a series of podcast episodes released prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the most compelling essays explore how the pandemic has reshaped our lives in profound ways. I think the closer you can read this to your own pandemic experience, the more this book will affect you in the same visceral way it affected me.  

The writing is charming and honest. I love that there are 5 star things in the book. I love that there are 1 star things in the book. I love the self-awareness of the 4.5 stars that John doles out to most wonderful things, and I love that by the end of each essay I could play the "How many stars will John give this?" game and I won most of the time because John conveys to you exactly how he feels about something and matches that with the star system perfectly. I love that you could take away the gimmick and have a wonderful memoir about struggle and perseverance and life, and I also love that the gimmick is still there. 

I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 5 stars.