An Abundance of Katherines

Let me start this review by saying I\’m a pretty big John Green fan. I started with Paper Towns, which I got as a gift, reading it in one sitting. I liked it so much that I went out and bought Looking for Alaska and read that in an all-nighter session, too. I loved Alaska. It covers the meaning of life while introducing three unforgettable characters: Pudge, The Colonel, and Alaska. And no, I didn\’t have to Google the names. Everyone always talks about A Fault in our Stars, but I was more curious about Green\’s sophomore effort, An Abundance of Katherines. Unlike Paper Towns and Alaska, I didn\’t read this in one sitting. It took several sessions for me to get through this. At first, I liked it well enough. We\’ve got Colin, a depressed wannabe protege who has just been dumped for the umpteenth time by a Katherine, who is being pushed to get out and live by his lazy, underachieving friend, the comic relief character, Hassan. Hassan doesn\’t have a job and he has taken a year off before going to college. The two decide to take a road trip. Of course? I\’m not going to go through the plot, but let\’s just say it\’s very forgettable in comparison to Alaska. Will Colin learn that there is more to life than getting dumped by girls with the same name and find a cool new girl (perhaps with a different name)? Will Hassan learn the meaning of hard work? Throughout the book we get a bunch of flashbacks to Colin\’s past relationships, but I can\’t say I was enthralled by these sections. They feel a bit pointless, and while some flashbacks are funny (like Colin getting dumped immediately by Katherine 1), most scenes just tend to drag because I found myself not caring. Let me explain, the reason I loved Alaska and Paper Towns was because the characters were so lovable, but here, meh, I just didn\’t connect. Sure, Hassan is funny, but he feels one-dimensional. His shtick wore thin relatively quickly. Colin, well, I just found him to be a whiny s***, to be honest. He\’s a loser, like Pudge, but without the charm and mannerisms that made me connect with that character. I think the main problem is that John Green wrote this in third-person, as opposed to first-person. The writing feels more distant. I just didn\’t buy what I was reading. Whereas, even the scenes in Alaska that felt made-up at least had a lovable humor or character developing aspect to them. Here, everything kind of feels forced. That\’s not to say I hated this book or anything, but in comparison to Green\’s other work, it feels clunky. And the ending, while nice, doesn\’t have the same moral impact or twist as his other works had. Overall, I\’d skip this unless you\’re a Green Completist.

Let me begin by saying I am a fan of John Green\’s writing and, honestly of John Green, himself. I\’ve seen him speak to teachers at a conference, follow his Twitter, and occasionally watch videos posted by him and his brother. I purchased this book at the same time as others 3+ years ago- reading The Fault in our Stars first, then Paper Towns and then, Looking for Alaska. As sometimes happens with buying too many Kindle books at one time, I assumed I had read An Abundance of Katherines, but actually hadn\’t. Maybe because it is the most recently read and it\’s the story I want to tell myself but I\’ve decided this one is the one I like the best of the works I have read of John Green. All of his books involve characters uncovering their \”truth with a capital t\” – about connecting with the human condition in touching, funny, memorable, and deeply meaningful ways. Each of his stories involves the character connecting with life through an odd, adorable nerd/dork fascination with an attention to detail that is remarkable and leaves me more knowledgeable even if I didn\’t think I needed to know so much about maps/mathematical theorems/a particular novel\’s author/famous last words. An Abundance of Katherines did not disappoint and proved/helped me re-remember that John Green is a magician with words, connects to the insecure teenager still within all of us, and can make us laugh while crying at the same time. I am really looking forward to reading Turtles All the Way Down – hoping it will become my new favorite.

Like a lot of people who\’ve read the books of John Green, my exposure to his books has been limited to his two biggest successes: Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars. I\’m not sure what\’s taken me so long to get to another one of his books after my enjoyment of those, but I\’m glad I finally made time for An Abundance of Katherines; even if it\’s just another example of Green\’s books (quirky heroes, young romance, hyper-verbal young people, a light touch), that doesn\’t mean that it doesn\’t do all of that well, nor make it any less appealing. The plot is light, driven more by its cast of characters than any complex storyline or events. We have Colin, the young genius who\’s terrified of ending up not meeting his potential – oh, and who keeps only falling in love with girls named Katherine, who always dump him. There\’s his best friend Hassan, an overweight slacker who\’s taking a year off before college with no evident plans to actually attend. And then there\’s their road trip, which ends up stopping in a little Tennessee town called Gutshot, where Colin and Hassan end up hunting feral pigs, investigating the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and coming up with a math theorem to help predict the shape of relationships. Green specializes in these sort of intelligent, witty misfits, and if that sort of thing bugs you, this probably isn\’t the book for you; the dialogue here is more Gilmore Girls than Richard Price, after all. But none of that bothers me, and more than that, there\’s his affection for his characters, with all of their flaws, doubts, fears, and anxieties. It takes a certain kind of author to re-create what it feels like to be on the verge of adulthood and worried that you can\’t possibly live up to everyone\’s hopes for you, and Green nails that tone here, from the friendly banter that hides real worries to the crippling doubt that can sneak out when you don\’t mean for it to. Admittedly, An Abundance of Katherines isn\’t as solid as Alaska or Stars, not by a long shot – the plot feels thinner and more stretched out, and some side stories – I\’m thinking especially of the details about a character\’s mother – feel a bit tossed in. But that didn\’t make it less enjoyable to spend time with this crew of characters and remember that moment in life when every possibility was ahead of you – and that was absolutely terrifying.

It\’s not that I can\’t see what Mr Green is doing here, it\’s just that the really interesting part of the book is the last four chapters. I pushed through and finished it as the author had been recommended but perhaps I picked the wrong book. Colin is a drip – a complete wimp who is needy, self-involved and emotionally retarded. His saving grace is that he\’s quite clever but that gets dull really quickly since he never uses his intelligence for anything useful. I\’ve met people like this in real life – they bore me there and they bore me on the page. Lindsey was a reasonable character and I actually liked Hassan. Otherwise not much happens in this book since 90% of it takes place in Colin\’s head – I mentioned that he bored me, right? Style wise, John Green\’s prose is flawless. He has a lot of clever stuff in here and I like the wry humour. I will try some of his other books based on that. He\’s clearly a talented writer. Can I recommend this to anyone? Not really, unless you want to spend four or five hours of your life in the head of an emotionally maladjusted boy who really doesn\’t consider the feelings of others and is obsessed with being clever. Also if you don\’t mind not much happening. If that\’s your bag, go for it, otherwise no, I\’m going to go out on a limb and say this is not Green\’s best work.

\’An Abundance of Katherines\’ is the story of Colin Singleton, former child prodigy who loves anagrams and has been dumped 19 times by girls called Katherines. Colin begins to develop a theorem, \’The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability\’ which he hopes will predict the future relationships he may have. Following his recent break up with Katherine 19, Colin and his best friend, Hassan, a direct-less genius who is quite happy to stay at home and watch \’Judge Judy\’ (who he may or may not have a crush on) decide to go on a road trip where they find adventure and a chance to meet the right girl for Colin. Colin and Hassan have a great friendship and for two boys they were surprisingly honest with each other which I enjoyed reading. Colin is a complicated character because he was obsessed with discovering why his relationships never worked which frustrated me because I felt that he was missing so many good things. Colin constantly tries to define himself and is scared of never finding his place in the world, maybe because of my age, I just felt that he had time to find himself but I remember feeling the same when I was teenager. I enjoyed \’An Abundance of Katherines\’ from start to finish, as always John Green writes brilliant and likeable characters. Rating: 5/5

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