Title: An Abundance of Katherines
Written by: John Green
Series: N/A
Publisher: Speak
Publish Date: Fall 2006
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 215
Source: Bought at Powell’s Books in Portland
Buy the Book: An Abundance of Katherines
Synopsis: 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. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself. (Via Amazon)
Brian’s Review: I’ve had a strange relationship with John Green this past year. Not the romantic kind, he’s happily married. In March of 2011 I fell in love with his debut novel, Looking for Alaska. It inspired me. It made me want to rush to the local library and independent bookstores and snatch of every recent young adult contemporary novel of recent years. It made me want to focus on writing smart teenagers in my work, teens who come alive on the page with their quirks and eccentricities. Then last summer I read The Fault in Our Stars, his mega-seller, and I loved it just the same. Two books in, and Green was my new favorite author. The man could do no wrong. But then I started reading his other books…
Paper Towns was entertaining, to be sure, but it left a sour taste in my mouth, because it reminded me so much of Looking for Alaska, almost to the point of plagiarism, that in a sense I felt like I was reading a lesser version of a book I loved so much just a few months prior. His short novella in the Let it Snow collection didn’t leave much an impression on me. And now we arrive to An Abundance of Katherines, the book he followed up Looking for Alaska with. An Abundance of Katherines earned him a second Michael L. Printz distinction, raves and awards from every corner of the Earth, but this one didn’t work for me. The outlandish characters, the road trip, the footnotes, the very notion that someone would date 19 girls named Katherine, it all just rang false to me. This may be the first book with the Printz seal on the front I haven’t liked, and it’s from the same author who wrote the book that’s my favorite of all the Printz winners.
This has never happened to me before with an author. I’ve read almost all of Stephen King’s entire library, and not been disappointed once. Not a single time. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this conundrum over Green. The one thing I’ve been able to pin down is that Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars are stories that revolve more around issues—a tragic death, cancer—while An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns are more quirky, fun reads that are more just trying to entertain the reader. An Abundance of Katherines is also written in the third person, but revolves so much around Colin that I think first person might have brought the reader in a little more. But people seem to love this book, worship the ground Green lives on. Maybe I’m missing something. I still stand behind my raves for Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, two books I think are flat-out brilliant. But his other two novels, while fine as entertainment, have not instilled in me the same excitement. Let’s hope I like Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but at this point, I might just re-read Looking for Alaska again, and remember why I fell in love with John Green in the first place.
