An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Title: An Abundance of Katherines

Author: John Green
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Acquired: Bought
Age Group: Young Adult

Grade: 90% or A-

Buy It: Amazon
 

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun – but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

My Thoughts::
After reading Looking for Alaska, I've been doing my best to read every single John Green book that I could get my hand on. But like most people, I forgot about An Abundance of Katherines and didn't read it until I was finished with the rest of them. Let me tell you, after reading it I really don't know why it isn't as popular as his other books.

While many good books have the ability to suck you into a story, very few great books have the ability to suck you into a character, which is John Green's specialty. They always have the most interesting and huggable personalities. Seriously, when I was reading this book I wanted to be everyone's best friend. Colin was just amazing. So clever and smart and...innocent. Hassan was almost better than Colin, as best friends in books often are. I could identify so much with their friendship, especially with their code word that let the other know that they are pressing an issue to far. When you get so involved with these characters it's as if you're invested in them. You aren't hoping for an interesting story or a dramatic twist to come along, you just want them happy and getting what they want. Which is kind of weird.

These amazing characters and their journey and development are probably the reasons why we get a bit shortchanged on a story. Sure, the characters grow and change and we can talk about their emotional growth for days...but not much happened. And when I do think about the things that happened, I'm not that interested. I'm more interested in the things that Colin thought, the things Lindsey confessed, and the things Hassan joked about. But this book did have a road trip, and boy do I love a good road trip in a book.

Overall I think that An Abundance of Katherines was a great book to read if you want to get into the mind of a character but probably isn't your thing if you're looking for action, which this book was lacking.