Structure

John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed is divided into forty-four short essays on a variety of topics, with each essay concluding with Green reviewing the topic or item in question out of five stars. Green’s book also has a brief introduction and a postscript, introducing the idea behind the book as a coping mechanism for Green during a hard time in his life and also reflecting upon Green’s experiences ‘in the Anthropocene,’ or rather in his own life on Earth, respectively.

The book’s structure clearly features a lot of discrete subjects discussed in discrete form by the author, leading to the book requiring a very particular form of reading pattern. Unlike in fiction or in typical nonfiction narrative, the reader is not expected or required to follow each chapter along in order, or to engage in a building exercise whereby the reader stacks meaning...