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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green


An Abundance of Katherines is my second book by John Green. I read Looking for Alaska in 2007 (review) and really loved it, but for some reason it took me this long to get around to my second. Unfortunately, I didn't love Katherines quite as much as Alaska. It was good and I read it in a short amount of time (which really counts for something when you tend to read 4 or 5 books at once.)


An Abundance of Katherines is about Colin- once a child prodigy, but not clearly on his way to adult genius. He's just broken up with the last in a very long string of Katherines and is obsessed with finding a mathematical formula that will predict when a couple will break up, and who will do the dumping. To distract him from this, his best pal Hassan takes him on a road trip to Gutshot, TN where the boys find a job and make some friends and, presumably, learn some Important Life Lessons.


I don't know why this one wasn't as appealing to me. I love the math bits (not REAL math, so don't be turned off by it!) and I loved Lindsey, the girl they met. I enjoyed some, but not all, of the interactions between Colin and Hassan. Reviewers seem to love Hassan's humor, but really I just found him a little annoying. The boys are fond of saying "Fugging" in place of another F-word, and they say it a LOT. At one point in the book another character asks why they don't say the real thing, and they have a reason, but regardless of reason it got annoying. (I'm not usually turned off by bad language, this just seemed silly to me though.)


Overall, it was ok. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it doesn't turn me off John Green. I have Paper Towns in my stack for the Read-A-Thon this weekend and I really hope to get to it. I'd like to see which of the previous two is the aberration.
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8 comments:

  1. Poor Katherines, nobody loves it but me :(

    Seriously, it seems that a lot of people don't like this one much, so you're not alone. Definitely don't be turned off. You'll probably love Paper Towns.

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  2. Thanks for the review. I think this might be the only John Green book I haven't read yet.

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  3. Sounds like one I will have to skip. Sorry it didn't do it for you.

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  4. I love the title of this book, for obvious reasons, so I'm sorry to hear it's not so hot.

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  5. This is one of those authors that I see everywhere and feel like I need to pick something up by him but just haven't brought myself to doing it yet. I guess I'll start with Looking for Alaska--I still remember your review from way back then.

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  6. Nymeth is right...no one loves it but her. ;-D

    No pressure, but I expect you'll like Paper Towns. Good choice for the read-a-thon!

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  7. I can't get any other John Green book but Looking For Alaska here in the UK. I want to read it and love it like nobody but Nymeth does..

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  8. I have read all three of Green's books and Looking for Alaska was probably my favourite. I still enjoyed the other two books, though. Paper Towns was an interesting idea. I hope you get a chance to read it!

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