A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

Picks of from the last book so abruptly that readers are left wondering what's going and who the characters are, right away

Livro muito bom! Recomendo! Very good book! I recommend!

I read the first book in this series as part of a book club in work, but after finishing it I needed to know what happened next. For a piece of "fiction," this book really made me think about life, how we consume social media, and the larger ramifications that it has on your life. I really enjoyed this book, Hank Green's literary style and the overall character development.

An excellent sequel. This book seems more like a thought piece then the previous, but in a way that is still fun and interesting and doesn't feel like a thought piece. These books should be taught in schools. Hank Green has a unique perspective on the social internet, and he has been working on that perspective for longer then most. This has all the lessons and thought provoking questions of a classic distopian novel but with modern issues like fame and celebrity on social media and the consequences of the social internet as a capitalist marketplace. Everyone existing on the internet needs to read these books.

Hank Green’s “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor” continues the story he began in “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” with the world adapting to the disappearance of the Carls and April May’s apparent death. Unlike the first novel, which was told almost exclusively from April’s perspective, here he alternates between Andy, Maya, Miranda at the beginning before brining April back into the narrative. Further, in a break from the first book, Green goes into detail about Carl’s creation and purpose. In Carl’s own words, “I was sent here in pieces to self-assemble and then mutualistically infect your planet because, without me, a fascinating and beautiful system would have a low probability of self-correcting to sustainability. In other words, someone somewhere was pretty sure you were going to destroy yourself, and they felt like you were worth saving, so they sent me” (pg. 165). In this sequel, Green uses Carl to explore the complex systems that govern our lives and our world, from the economy to social media.Green’s novel explores the nature of the mind and, in the tradition of science fiction speculating about the possible advances in technology and how they could affect society, he examines the nature of true virtual reality and how it might build on the role of social media in our society (pgs. 182-183). Discussing the manner in which people imagine the connections between their minds and bodies both in how Carl resurrected and rebuilt April and in the Altus space, Green writes, “You are a story that you tell yourself, and even if it is not always accurate, it is who you are, and that it very important to you” (pg. 170). In some particularly timely commentary, Green examines how systems collapse and what that does to society. Specifically, after the disappearance of the Carls and the Dream, people seem to lack purpose and a recession looms (pg. 204). While Green wrote this prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the types of systemic collapses he describes evoke much of what we’re experiencing now, except that his novel portrays people feeling alienated and adrift whereas COVID has physically distanced people and left them with a sense of dread as some world leaders fail to respond to it in a helpful way. Describing the imminence of systemic collapse, Green writes in a particularly prescient section, “Focusing on efficiency for the sake of fewer and fewer powerful people would make us more vulnerable to shocks from catastrophes both expected and unexpected. Power grid failures or pandemics or cyberattacks would, in the next couple hundred years, cause some kind of permanent breakdown” (pg. 232). Further, describing the destabilization process, “The largest affecting factors will be tremendous concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer people, who will then destabilize the world to protect that power, large-scale isolation caused by easy alternatives to community and society, and a change in the speed of transfer of information that will be too rapid for norms and taboos to prevent it from being used maliciously” (pg. 278). In this, Green could be describing any of the changes that have occurred over the past two decades and with which societies continue to struggle in their efforts to adapt as they are redefined.Like its predecessor, Green’s work comments on the nature of social media and fame, featuring several quotable lines such as, “The truest strength is shouldering the burden of care” (pg. 106). Green describes Andy reacting to his newfound fame following the Carls and April May’s disappearance along with the public requests for comment with a new mantra, “Can you tell them something that will make them feel better?” (pg. 33). To a certain extent, this recalls the Nerdfighter mantra, “Don’t Forget to Be Awesome.” Through Maya, Green discusses the way social media allows some people to vent their cruelty: “I understand people didn’t like April, but how does it feel like a winning strategy to go after a recently deceased murder victim? Just a not to everyone: Don’t do that. Even if you’re right, it makes you look wrong. And I had figured out by this point that how things look is more or less the same as how they are” (pg. 63). This reflects the way social media tends to group similar ideologies together. As Green writes, “People will just share the things that confirm their ideology, and those things will always exist. Our reality isn’t about what’s real, it’s about what we pay attention to” (pg. 349). Finally, Green describes this best when he writes, “We have to realize that the places where we share information are not services we use, they are places where we live” (pg. 419). Based on that, they should be viewer like any other community and regulated similarly.Despite the novel’s warnings, Green offers hope for humanity’s goodness and ability to overcome the challenges we face. He writes, “You’re radically collaborative, profoundly empathetic, and deeply communal. Everyone who tells you anything different is selling the fear that is the only thing that can break that nature. They do that because it turns people into devices. My only advice: Never do that to another person, and do not let anyone do it to you” (pg. 445). As a sequel, “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor” more than succeeds in building on the original, both in plot and themes, and going further with them in a way that is satisfying to readers of the original work.

Endlich gibt es die Fortsetztung! Nach diesem Quälendem Ende geht es endlich weiter und wir werde erlöst von der unsicherheit dieses Endes.Okay um ganz ehrlich zu sein, ich liebe den ersten Band und den zweiten Band, aber das Ende war für mich okay. Ich war wütend und frustiert, aber es war für mich ein Ende. Aber die erleichterung war groß, als dieses Buch angekündigt wurde. Denn eine Fortsetzung hat Hoffnung für unsere Charaktere bedeutung, hoffnung, das nicht alles so final war wie es scheint. Aber ich schweife ab, schließlich will ich euch erzählen wie Band 2 war und nicht wie sehr ich mich auf dieses Buch gefreut habe.Das erste was mir aufgefallen ist, dass dieses Buch rießig ist. Nun ja ich habe mir versehentlich die UK Ausgabe und nicht die US Ausgabe gekauft. Was erstmal frustrierend ist, denn die sprechen eine Sprache, warum muss das Buch in einem neuen Format dort rauskommen? Aber noch schockierender für mich ist, dass die UK Ausgabe kleiner Schrift benutzt als die US Ausgabe des ersten Bandes und trotzdem 200 Seiten mehr hat.Inhaltlich hat sich einiges geändert, denn schließlich ist April in dem Feuer gestorben und wenn unsere Protagonistin stirbt, die die ganze Geschichte erzählt hat, wie geht es dann weiter? Ihre Freunde machen weiter, wir erleben die Gedanken und Alltäge von den anderen. Jeder einzelne von Ihnen geht in so verschiedene Richtungen und dennoch bildet es eine zusammenhängende Geschichte. Wir beginnen mit all dem Charaktern mit dem „und was jetzt?“. Es ist gerade was Weltbewegendes passiert, die ganze Welt hat sich um diesen Freundeskreis gedreht. Aber was macht man, wenn die Welt nicht mehr zuschaut, weil April nicht mehr da ist. Und während alle so langsam in ihren Alltag zurückkehren oder versuchen mit der Situation klar zu kommen, merken wir das es natürlich noch nicht vorbei ist, schließlich gibt es dieses Buch.Im ersten Band ging sehr viel um Social Media und uns, wie beeinflusst es jemanden auf einmal eine rießige Plattform zu haben. Im zweiten Band geht es mehr um die Sci-Fi Seite. Ich sage mehr, weil es geht immer noch um Social Media und ihren Einfluss. Aber wir bekommen endlich erklärt was im ersten Band eigentlich mit Carl passiert ist. Ich will nicht zu viel verraten, denn das ist eher die zweite Hälfte, aber alter falter ist das gut! Es steckt so viel Planung in diesem Buch und so viel Fachwissen.Abgesehen vom Inhalt muss ich bei diesem Band leider anmerken, dass es mir schwerer gefallen ist das Buch zu lesen. Es hat mehr Energie gekostet sich hinzusetzten und in diese Welt einzutauchen. Insgesamt war es schwieriger rein zukommen. Das könnte vielleicht daran liegen, dass es sich weniger wie Young Adult anfühlt als das erste Buch und immer noch auf Englisch geschrieben ist.Mein FazitHat sich das warten gelohnt? Ja! Ich bin mit diesem Buch mehr als zufrieden auch wenn es eine andere Richtung eingeschlagen hat. Ich fand es sehr interessant über die eher Wissenschaftliche Seite dieser Welt zu lesen und das hat die Welt noch realer wirken lassen. Aber auch die Charaktere haben die Entwicklung bekommen, die sie verdient haben.