*Review* An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

 

Genre: YA Romance

Published: August 14, 2008

Pages: 260

Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be 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.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. I listened to it at 1.7 speed while working doing data entry. This may have led to me missing some nuance to the story, but I'm pretty sure I have a pretty good handle on what happened in the story. The narration was clear and I don't remember being annoyed by the opposite gendered voices (which can be an issue for me in audiobooks). 

This is a story about a teenager named Colin who is likely on the autism spectrum. He reminded me a lot of how Sheldon Cooper is portrayed in The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon and I think Sheldon is on the spectrum. It's never stated though, so that's just my conjecture from what I know of the spectrum. The fact that he literally only dates people named Katherine (the correct spelling!) is an interesting idiosyncrasy, but I could've dated him (maybe. The fact that I hate being called by my legal name might have ruled me out as a prospect). 

Because I was listening to the audiobook while working, it was really easy for me to fly through this book in just two days. Had I been reading it myself, it definitely would've taken me longer to read, but only because I have very few hours to spend reading in any given day. I definitely would've wanted to keep reading to see how things were going to pan out for Colin, but also to hear the stories from the factory workers that they spend their days interviewing. 

Overall I give this audiobook 4.28 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse (youtube.com/crashcourse). You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com.

John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.