Tuesday 14 January 2014

Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines - John Green

Pub. Date- 2013 Publisher- Penguin Group, Australia Pages- 226
Readership- Young Adult Genre- Contemporary Rating- 4.5 stars







"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. He's also a washed-up child prodigy with ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a passion for anagrams, and an overweight, Judge Judy-obsessed best friend. Colin's on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will predict the future of all relationships, transform him from a fading prodigy into a true genius, and finally win him the girl.

Letting expectations go and allowing love in are at the heart of Colin's hilarious quest to find his missing piece and avenge dumpees everywhere."



When talking about contemporary young adult novels John Green is an author that is always mentioned and for a very good reason. This book follows child prodigy Colin Singleton who is trying to bridge the gap between highly gifted child to full blown genius. Colin only dates girls named Katherine and after dating 19 of them and feeling like he's failing at life he takes a road trip with his hilarious best friend Hassan Harbish.
I really enjoyed this story, it was interesting with its focus on Colin's dating Theorem but the math was never overwhelming. Everything that was needed explanation was always in the footnotes. The footnotes always have a witty feel to them that made them a true pleasure to read. I was 100% entertained throughout the whole story either by Colin's inner thoughts or Hassan's straight forward 'tell it how it is' manner. In all, the whole story flowed nicely with only some minor slow points. 

Hassan was certainly my favourite character through-out the book, his love of Judge Judy and sassy jokes sold him for me. I think one of the best parts of this story is that every character has some very relatable qualities even if all their others weren't. The character development was a very real feeling although everything wasn't magically perfect by the end. 

The only fault with this hilarious novel was its unreal feeling that some of the plot elements had. Why would any girl date a guy that had dated 18 girls before her with the same name? I know it was meant to be quirky but sometimes it just felt fake. That's the only reason to me this book isn't 5 stars.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quirky read, just don't try and  compare it to much to The Fault In Our Stars.

Will you put this on your tbr? Or have you already read it?

2 comments:

  1. After reading your review, I'm interested in picking this up again - I tried reading it sometime last year, but I just couldn't get into it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Once you get about 3 chapters in is where it really picks up. It was a good easy easy read.

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