The Anthropocene Reviewed is a book of autobiographical essays by author John Green, released in May 2021. The book aims to take standard aspects of human life, and turn them into subjects on the human experience, and how we interact with Earth.

To begin, The Anthropocene is the idea of the time where humanity now has a profound impact on our home, Earth. (Also known as, when everything began to fall apart.)

It’s awfully meta and tongue and cheek that I am managing to review a book that reviews humanity. It’s like if you tried to broadcast news as told by another station. However, I can only try to do a review of a review, properly.

I started reading this book over our extended snow break in January, and I got through the whole thing in a week. After reading through it for the first time, I can say that it’s definitely a human experience, one that allows us to reflect on our place in the universe.

This book reminds me of when I was 15, in the middle of an expansive existential crisis, to the point where all my thoughts were funneled into one thought: “Nothing Matters.” Now, however, almost 3 years later, I finally have a counterargument through this book. “Everything Matters.”

It explains everything from Diet Dr. Pepper, to CNN, to Canadian Geese, making it all relate back to our innate human roots. The best part is, this book doesn’t beat you over the head with preachy language, it allows all that read it to pull both different and similar lessons that teach us how we are what we are.

There’s a quote at the very end of this book that somehow manages to describe the whole of human existence in a single sentence. “What a gift to be Earth, loving Earth.” It’s so profound because in a sense, we are Earth, breathing Earth, reading Earth, and reviewing Earth. I give The Anthropocene Review five stars.