What I'm Reading -- An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Vin Swanson's Teen-Reading-O-Rama continues with the newest book by Looking for Alaska author John Green. An Abundance of Katherines is about Colin, a super intelligent high schooler who has only dated (and been dumped) by girls named Katherine. His best and only friend Hassan tries to get Colin away from moping about Katherine XIX and drags him on a road trip which ends in Gutshot, Tennessee. In Gutshot, they get jobs and meet some nice girls as Colin tries to create his legacy by producing a theorem that can map the ups and downs of any relationship from beginning to end. The author deftly gives us two characters that are at each end of the ambition spectrum. Colin is ultra ambitious and feels his life is getting away from him already and he is not even in college yet. Hassan is fine living off of his parents and avoiding college. The friends are amazingly funny and of course, find many ways to get in trouble on their vacation. I had an extremely rough time identifying with the characters and this could be a problem for other readers. It is, however, one of the funniest books I have ever read, so that did not dampen my enjoyment of this book very much. I don’t know if this is better than Looking for Alaska, but Green does a better job putting together a full and concise story in An Abundance of Katherines. This is book I would not hesitate to recommend to many readers of Teen Lit.