Tuesday, March 10, 2009

An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
categories: coming of age, comedy, romance, friendships (boy), travels, transition to college
Grade: B/B+

First, let me say that I am definitely a fan of John Green - we use his Looking for Alaska as our 12th grade summer reading title. So I don't feel quite as bad admitting that I was really prompted to read this book for the workshop I'm giving next week on YA Lit in the Content Area and I needed another math book. That said - this is a great book! (even though it does have math throughout it...)
I like the interesting combination of characters - Colin is a complex protagonist, though I have to admit that his social peculiarity seemed a bit too strong for him to have dated 19 girls. He sounded much more like Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time, a character battling Aspberger's. His relationship with Lindsey does seem fairly realistic, though I enjoyed his friendship with Hassan much more.
While I'm not sure how accurate the math is, it is entirely understandable, even for an English teacher like myself. The Appendix with the math explanation is also great - it's a wonderful plot technique, since the story can exist without it but is so much better for the inclusion.
Overall, it's a strong story - my favorite of Green's so far.

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