Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines

By: John Green
Pages: 228
Published: September 1, 2006

Summary: 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, washedup 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.

Rating: 5

Review: I just so happened that I was reading this book over Valentine's Day. You would think you'd want to read a cute love story over Valentines Day but no I was reading this. It was amazing. So Imagine this:

A "washed up child prodigy" that only dates girls named Katherines, knows eleven languages, and was recently dumped by the 19th Katherine. This most-likely not your life but it is Colin Singleton's life. 

This book is amazing. There is so much John Green-ness (yes it is word) in this book. It makes you think but it was also really funny. There is also a fair amount of math in here, not that you actual have to know math to understand the book. I enjoyed the math and the random equations and graphs that pop up in this book while Colin is working on The Underlying Theorem of Katherine predictability. 

I actually really liked Colin. Yes he is a general pessimist. And yes he finds random things interesting. And yes he only dates girls named Katherine. And yes he has been dumped nineteen times all by girls by Katherine. I think it would be really interesting to have a conversation with him.

There were also footnotes and I loved the footnotes. You end up learning a lot of random fun facts.

I would definitely recommend this book, it was really fun.

Favourite Quotes: “Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”

“You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”

“I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.” 

“Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou” 

“There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.”

“That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.” 

“What matters to you defines your mattering.”

“Because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you.”

“If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?” 

“How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?” 

“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” 

Ok that's a lot of quotes, well I hope you liked them!


DFTBA
-Jane