An Abundance of Katherines

I think this book is one of those underrated novels that given a proper chance to fully comprehend the dynamics and quirky humor, it would have a higher average rating. For me, this was a huge pleasant surprise and I loved it a lot.I will say, it starts out slow because it needs to set up the characters and their psyche but once I got to around thirteen percent, I was hooked. Colin is very unique and I wanted to know why all these Katherine’s were in his life over the years. His story takes some time to develop but along the way he has his bestie Hassan by his side and the two of them together were hilarious at times. They have an incredible relationship and are very loyal to one another. They take a road trip to get over K-19 and learn so much about themselves but also the little town of Gutshot. There were times I was laughing out loud, even at two in the morning, with some of their antics or the entertaining footnotes throughout the book. The math ones went right over my head but the others …. priceless! Absolutely recommend this one.

This review will be divided into two sections, no spoilers and spoilers. This first half contains no spoilers.John Green is a great author. Currently, I've read all his books aside from Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Let it Snow. His novels are coming of age stories where usually the plot doesn't change too much, but the characters are written so beautifully that it comes off as a completely new story. One of Green's strongest suite as an author is writing supporting characters and, more specifically, best friends: The Colonel in LfA, Ben and Radar in PT, and, to an extent, Isaac in TFiOS. Hassan in An Abundance of Kathrines is no exception. In fact, he might be my favorite best friend in all John Green's books, except for maybe the Colonel. Now, more on An Abundance of Kathrines.Colin Singleton is a washed up former child prodigy on his may to not becoming a genius. Oh yeah, he only dates girls names Kathrine, and, almost as a rule, they break up with him. An Abundance of Kathrines starts out with Colin 'recovering' from being dumped from his most recent Kathrine, Kathrine XIX. Immediately, the reader gets the idea that this Kathrine was more important than the rest. This leads to Colin's best friend, the lovable, overweight Hassan, a semi-religious Muslim taking a year off before (hopefully) attending college. Hassan comes up with the idea of going on a road trip to help clear Colin's head and get a new look on life. Early in the road trip, the duo find themselves in Gutshot, Tennessee, burial place of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. While taking a tour of the resting place of said Archduke, Colin has his first Eureka moment.Much more on the lighthearted side than Paper Towns, and MUCH more than Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Kathrines is a fun story filled with memorable one liners, hilarious jokes and moments, and tons of trivia. Now you may be wondering why I've only given the book 4/5 stars, well, here's why.*****SPOILERS*****DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ JOHN GREEN'S OTHER BOOKS*****The relationship between Colin and Lindsey Lee Wells is quite possibly my favorite in all of John Green's books. I'm not sure what it was exactly, maybe those fantastically written moments in Lindsey's cave, but I fell in love with Lindsey. My complaint is this. John Green loves sad endings. It worked in Looking for Alaska and TFiOS. Paper Towns took some getting used to but I understand why Margo didn't go back with Quentin. I DON'T understand why Lindsey and Colin couldn't stay together. After I finished the last chapter before the epilogue, I told myself I wasn't going to read the epilogue because I KNEW John Green was going to do something to make it sad. It took me three day but eventually I began reading it. On the SECOND PAGE Lindsey breaks up with Colin. WHY? It wasn't necessary. No one was sick, no one was dying. They were both High School graduates. Why couldn't they go to the same college, or at least make plans? They could have easily worked something out. I stopped reading after that paragraph and didn't finish the epilogue. I'd love to hear comments from people who have read this on my opinion.

I think John Green is brilliant. Period. Even if someone doesn't like YA novels, there's no denying his talent. One of my favorite aspects of his writing is the characters he creates. He's amazing with characters and each is so intricate and interesting and none are cliche to a fault. Some characters, like "The Other Colin" in this novel are cliche on purpose, because TOC is supposed to be numbskull football player. In this book in particular, the characters are crazy good. Colin with his random facts and prodigy mind reminds me of me of my favorite character from Criminal Minds, Dr. Spencer Reid. Hassan is probably my favorite character with his humor and personality. I think he's hilarious and perfectly written. Lindsey turns out to be a sort of atypical popular girl, and I'll admit I didn't always love her character, but that doesn't mean she wasn't well-written.I also particularly enjoyed Colin and Hassan's relationship. The two worked together perfectly and were entertaining. Hassan calls Colin "kafir" and they often refer to each other as "sitzpinkler," which loosely translates to being a wimp. They also use "dingleberries" as a sort of safe word to indicate when the other has gone too far. Their friendship is also admirably loyal.I also adored all the footnotes! They were funny and give insight in a way that totally worked with Colin's personality.A final thing I loved about the novel was the intricacy of everything and the way everything was connected. For example (spoiler alert), Colin and Hassan end up in Gutshot simply to see where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was buried, and at the end, Colin realizes that it never was the Archduke, but instead Lindsey's great-grandfather. "Fred N. Dinzanfar, that anagramming bastard." One of Colin's greatest pleasures also happens to be anagramming.The ending was wrapped up beautifully and I loved when he described all the Katherine's in detail because I had waited for that the entire novel and it was entertaining. My favorite was probably the sixth, "she was excellent at both pottery and pull-ups, two fields of endeavor at which I have never excelled, and although between us we could have made an unstoppable force of intelligence and upper-body strength and coffee mug-making, she dumped me anyway." John Green's books are never boring, and his language is always amazing and intriguing!