In his much-anticipated debut novel Hank Green - co-creator of Crash Course Vlogbrothers and
SciShow - spins a sweeping cinematic tale about a young woman who becomes an overnight
celebrity before realising she's part of something bigger and stranger than anyone could have
possibly imagined. The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m.
twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance
and craftsmanship - like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armour - April
and her friend Andy make a video with it which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April
wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens
of cities around the world - everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires - and April as their
first documentarian finds herself at the centre of an intense international media spotlight.
Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships her identity and her safety that
this new position brings all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just
what the Carls are but what they want from us. Compulsively entertaining and powerfully
relevant An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes including how the social
internet is changing fame rhetoric and radicalisation how our culture deals with fear and
uncertainty and how vilification and adoration spring from the same dehumanization that
follows a life in the public eye.
