Book Review: John Green – “An Abundance Of Katherines”

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. (Source: amazon.com)

Alright, so my first thought about this book: “WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST READ?!” I found it pretty hard to read myself into this story, way more difficult than into any other book I’ve ever read. First of all, this is the only book of all the ones I’ve read of John Green that does NOT have a first-person narrator – which was weird at first, if you are used to it after 4 books. The second thing that bugged me from the beginning to the end is split up in two parts:

1. Footnotes. I had no idea this book would be built up like that. For instance, Colin’s best friend is an arabian guy called Hassan. Now, it can’t be avoided to throw in the one or other arabic word, which, of course, has to be explained. That was not my personal problem, because I have to admit, it’s nice to have them explained, to learn some words of a language that is so foreign to you. The thing is: throughout the story there are at least three footnotes in each chapter, mostly mathematical, and the moment you see them, you have the actual intention to memorize them until the end…but when you reached said end of the chapter, you have basically forgotten what the footnote is explaining (and turning back the pages is already annoying when I’m reading a normal book, but as a matter of fact, I read this particular one on my Kindle, so turning back was no option for me).

2. Math. Urgh. I mean, I am not at all into math. In fact, I absolutely despise it. That may be because I have no clue whatsoever about any of that subject matter, never have and never will, but I also think it’s one of the most annoying things human kind has ever invented. And the fact that John Green himself only had a C- in Pre-Calc makes me wondering even more what the hell he was thinking putting all these mathematical parts into the story (not to mention the author’s note at the end of the book that I skipped after 4 pages because I understood Jack Squad).

If you leave these two factors out, there’s still potential in the book. It’s nice to accompany nerdy, not self-conscious Colin on his road trip to find himself and the answer to all his problems – which of course, you’ll never find. What I learned throughout reading is that no matter how much you try to find answers to your current problems, on your way to find those answers, there will be more problems/questions that you want to solve; therefor, it’s an endless journey during which it’s easy to forget who you are, and what really matters. Maybe with this story, John Green has sent out a moral to everyone who has ever had their heart broken (which, basically, everyone has, hands down). And for the first time in all the 4 books I’ve read of him so far, I got a Happy End, which was nice for a change.

I have to admit, the characters did not leave me in so much awe as all the other characters in John Green’s stories, except for Lindsey Lee Wells, the female “heroine”. Once again, a girl is the star, a fierce, funny and “She’s-going-to-suck-you-in-no-matter-what-you-do”-kind of person who I, personally, warmed up to instantly. Just as I did with Hassan, Colin’s best friend, although to me, he seemed a bit flat compared to earlier best friend characters, like Ben Starling in “Paper Towns” or even Isaac, Augustus Waters’ best friend in “The Fault In Our Stars”. He was funny, no question, but for me, something was missing about his character, a certain edge that I admire so much about every other of John Green’s best friend characters.

All in all, from all the novels by John Green I know so far, this is the weakest one, although not a bad one. I would still recommend it for the sake of the reader maybe finding some things out about themselves, especially if they’re currently on a journey through a break-up or just a simple “breaking-heart-syndrome”. And for all the fans of his novels, I think it is a must-read.