Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines


“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”

“If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?”


And with this book review, not including series which I cannot at this time review (as I haven't reached their current terminations), I am officially caught up in book reviews, and we will lay off the one-a-day diet.  Applause for Hannah!



Colin Singleton is a child prodigy. Or was.  As he is quick to remind people, child prodigy is not the same thing as genius, and many child prodigies grow up to become nothing.  So here Colin is, at the end of his childhood, trying to figure out how to make his transition into meaning something to the adult world.  He also has a type.  He has dated (and been dumped by) nineteen girls, all of them named Katherine.  Even all spelled that way.  So, Colin hopes to use his knowledge of Katherines to make The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability.  Hopefully, this theorem will be an equation which can predict the outcome and duration of any relationship.  As Colin seeks to find himself and understand the world, he still realizes that he is a teenager, and angst will happen.

 I like John Green.  I was holding out on a general statement until I had read enough books to find a pattern.  And I haven't read them all--though Paper Towns is on hold at the library--but after reading Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, I believe that I can say that I enjoy his books.  This one was much less ripe with drug use and sex than Looking for Alaska, and I appreciated that. That was really pulling Looking for Alaska down in the ratings.  So, anyways, I enjoyed this book.  

 I do have to say that I just didn't connect with Lindsey very well, when usually I connect with all of John Green's characters, even the ones I don't identify with.  But, Hassan and Colin I definitely connected with and understood.  I think that Green is very good at capturing that teenager/young adult feeling of, "Where am I going?  And what have I ever achieved with my life that actually means something?"  That feeling that the world is not really your oyster, even though everyone says that it is--it could be, but you are missing something.  And that feeling that you, for the first time, are actually self-aware, and that's scary.

I will bequeath it 4 stars. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Over-analyzing Disney Movies: The Little Mermaid--Why Eric is White.

Image
I have recently noticed a trend of just purely over-analyzing Disney movies.  In this category, I also include the fascination with photoshopping Disney characters to swap genders, races, or eras, as well as making princesses have "realistic" body shapes (which is something I could write a whole other post about, and it wouldn't be pretty.  Spoiler alert:  I find it to be one of the most unempowering trends of recent years).  However, I sometimes wonder at how much people are reading into Disney movies.  Today, I'm going to over-analyze their over-analysis. I recently read that the fact that Eric is a white prince is a representation of how we white-wash racial expectations for our children.  I'm not even sure what that sentence means.  It seems to have a lot of buzz words.  But I'm going to show you today, using evidence from the film, why Prince Eric is, in fact, the correct color. (I will, however, say that Eric is the only Disney prince who legitimatel
Read more

Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!

James Joyce is my kind of guy. He made puzzles that I like to think are just for me. He was a great lover of languages, and he is sometimes called the father of a literary technique called polyglotism. This is when you insert other languages in there. Just 'cuz. So, in James Joyce's wonderful story, "Eveline" there is a phrase that nobody knows what it is. Even to this day. "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" Many people believe it to be corrupted Irish Gaelic. Needing a break from homework, I have approached this by taking the words and then transliterating them into Irish Gaelic, trying to create Irish Gaelic that would be spoken by someone of this status in this time in Ireland. Nationalist, but not educated enough to actually understand all the ins and outs of the language. I came up with two possible phrases that I find very probable. And I'm not pretending to solve the mystery. If Joyce experts over the years have not discovered the mean
Read more

What does it mean to be a Russell?

Image
As many know, most European families (not all, but most) have a coat of arms, a crest, a motto, all that good stuff. So, I decided to look a bit into what being a Russell means. And maybe I'll do the same for Hatches, because I am a Hatch too. The last name Russell is Scottish and means "Red-headed" and derives from the Norman name of Roussel. The Russells are a well-respected Highland Scot clan, complete with Scottish crest and tartan: The motto on the crest "virtus sine macula" means "Virtue without blemish." As Scotland incorporated more and more into England, the Russells became nobility in that world as well, and were thus presented with a coat of arms: And yes, the motto written on that one is "che sara sara." You've got to admit, that's pretty gosh-darn cool. It really does mean "Whatever will be, will be." And in honor of that:
Read more