Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Publisher: Dutton Books
Release Date: September 21, 2006
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

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.

Two things to know about Colin: He is a former child prodigy with a talent for anagramming and he has a predilection for dating Katherines. Katherine XIX has just dumped him and he is devastated. To take his mind off the break-up, he and his best friend Hassan go on a road trip.

Heading down the highway, they spot a sign for a town called Gutshot indicating that Franz Ferdinand is buried there. Can this be? They decide to stop. Lindsey, the tour guide, convinces them to stay in Gutshot for a while. The rest of the book is Colin’s struggle with the memories of Katherines past and how that struggle affects his relationships with his friends, old and new.

I enjoyed this book but I didn’t LOVE it like the other John Green books I’ve read. I think that one of the reasons was that I found it hard to believe that someone could encounter 19 Katherines in their lifetime. But the main reason is Colin’s theorem. Colin is obsessed with coming up with a mathematical formula that can determine who will be the dumper vs. dumpee in a relationship. The actual math his uses is included at several points with graphs and everything. I found these parts boring and I didn’t understand any of it. There is an appendix included that explains the math further and it didn’t help at all! It was written by Daniel Biss, who is the vlogbrother’s “official mathematician” (and is currently running for Governor of Illinois) and I love the vlogbrothers so that was a cool connection.

Even with all of the math, The Abundance of Katherines is still a solid offering from John Green that I very much enjoyed.

Other  John Green books I’ve reviewed:

Looking for Alaska
The Fault in Our Stars
Turtles All the Way Down