An Abundance of Katherines by John Green || Review Friday

And I'm back with another John Green book! Why do I still keep going back to his books? Well, even though the last one turned out be a miss, I still appreciate the way he writes. And this did help in redeeming him from utter damnation in my eyes. (As you can see, dramatic is something I'm definitely not!) Let's get down to business now. 

Title: An Abundance of Katherines

Author: John Green

Genre: Young Adult

The book is aptly titled, for you do find too many Katherines to keep track of (19, to be exact), as Colin's 'type' of whom he finds attractive isn't just restricted to their hair colour or any other physical attrubute; his 'type' is a Katherine. All of his ex-girlfriends have been named Katherine. The story starts with him being dumped for the 19th time, perdictably, by the 19th Katherine aka K-19, and he decides to go on a road trip with his best friend Hassan to mend his broken heart. (Yes, road trips and realizations through said road trips feature a lot in Green's works. )

While at a pit stop, he and his friend somehow find themselves in a decrepit town called Gutshot. Then he ends up working for someone there, and falls in love with that person's daughter. And at least with this relationship, he has progressed alphabetically, for his new girlfriend's name starts with an L, Lindsey. And for Lindsey, he is the second Colin that she has had as a boyfriend.  (The other Colin does make a minor appearance though, and Colin and Hassan call him TOC- The Other Colin.) Oh, the irony of it all!

With the plot skeleton taken care of, let's now get to what actually makes this story interesting- math. Oh you heard that right, MATH! Colin is a child prodigy who loves anagramming, reading, and learning languages. Colin really wants to prove that he's not just a child prodigy, so he begins working on a big complicated math equation to figure out what went wrong with his relationships, and he calls it the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability. (The math in here is real, people! There's even an appendix by mathematician  Daniel Bliss explaining all the mathematical formulae that Colin uses to come up with his theorem.) He tries to predict the future of his relationship with Lindsey with the theorem, but all that goes for a toss with the revelation that with K-3 (#3 Katherine), he was in fact, the dump-er and not the dump-ee.

Then comes the usual philosophical stuff, John Green style, with Colin realizing that  he doesn't have to really hold on to his prodigy status anymore, and that relationships can't be unraveled by logic.

The novel ends with Colin, Lindsey and Hassan driving off into the sunset. La Fin.

Do I like the book and will i recommend it? Well, it's definitely worth a read. It's engaging and a quick page turner, and leaves you satisfied in the end.

Rating:4/5