I didn’t expect myself to write about a book on here, but I also didn’t expect to be able to sit down with a book and read quietly. Sometimes thoughts just ask to be written down and shared.
Recently I’ve found myself watching the vlog brothers on youtube now and again. The way John Green talks about his life and the struggles of his daily life help in the sea of anxiety. His bits about his book sparked my interest and I ordered it. I worried it wouldn’t be able to sit down and read it as it’s been hard for me to find the headspace for reading, but just one page of introduction sucked me into the book like very few books in my life have done.
The Anthropocene reviewed is a quiet kind of beautiful. John Green’s honest short essays are eloquently written and show a soft beauty in the world without sounding optimistic. He is beautifully honest about struggles in mental health in a way that neither romantesizes nor demonises it. Green talks honestly about struggles in his life. He tells quiet truths about pain and depression, in a way we rarely acknowledge. He doesn’t make things seem easier or less painful than they are and manages to do this without bitterness or anger. He shares the stories and poems and lyrics that have helped him exist. Moreover he manages to do all this with a kind sense of humour and make you smile even while reading about the roughest of times in his life. I give the Anthropocene reviewed four and a half out of five stars.