I read What If? more for entertainment than long-term retention of information. In that light, the book served its purpose because I was smiling the whole way through. Monroe is a former NASA engineer who began making webcomics under the alias xkcd in 2005. He answers ‘what if’ questions of any subject, rekindles the childish curiosity in you, and has a style of humour that I can only aspire to achieve.
My only complaint is that taking high school physics and reading A Brief History of Time, believe it or not, does not put your physics knowledge on par with that of a NASA engineer. I would have preferred some more elaborate explanations and calculations to the scientific questions… although doing that might sacrifice some entertainment value.
Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to literally anyone because it’s great. By the way THERE’S A SEQUEL which I will definitely be reading.
IRL Update (05/01/2023): Having returned from a final-exam-induced reading hiatus, I’m back! There’s 1 more week before my co-op starts. Can I finish another book before then?