An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines
Author(s)	John Green
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young adult novel
Publisher	Dutton
Publication date	2006
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	256 pp
ISBN	0-525-47688-1
OCLC Number	65201178
LC Classification	PZ7.G8233 Abu 2006

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An Abundance of Katherines is a young adult novel by John Green. Released in 2006, it was a finalist for the Michael L. Printz Award.

An appendix explaining some of the more complex equations Colin uses throughout the story was written by Daniel Biss, a close friend to Green.

Plot summary

Colin Singleton is an anagram-loving seventeen year old boy who has become depressed because though he has maintained his status of a child prodigy, he has not yet become a “genius.” He wishes to accomplish this goal by having a Eureka moment. As well as not being the genius he hopes to be, his girlfriend, Katherine 19 (over the span of his life, Colin has dated nineteen girls named Katherine, all spelled in that manner), recently dumped him. In these relationships, Colin remembers only the Katherine dumping him.

After graduating from high school, and before college, Colin's best and only friend convinces him to go on a road trip with him to take his mind off the breakup. The friend is Hassan Harbish, a funny, lazy, Judge Judy-obsessed Muslim. After driving for a while, they come across the alleged resting place of the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There, they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, a “paramedic in training.” She is the tour guide for those seeing the tomb of the Archduke. After a short time, Colin and Hassan find themselves employed by Hollis, Lindsey’s mother and the woman running a local factory that currently produces tampon strings. They live with their employer and her daughter in a rural town called Gutshot, Tennessee.

As time passes, Colin finds himself becoming attracted to Lindsey, though matters are somewhat complicated by her on-again, off-again boyfriend Colin (he and Hassan call him TOC, "the other Colin"). Our Colin, the prodigy, attempts to become a genius by having his Eureka moment. He chases this goal through his theorem, which is meant to determine the curve of any relationship based on several factors of the personalities of the two people in a relationship. It would predict the future of any two people. His theorem eventually works for all but one of his past relationships with a Katherine. But it is later discovered by Colin that he had dumped this Katherine (Katherine the Third), rather than the other way around. The graphs all make perfect sense at this juncture.

As Colin’s story is revealed to the reader, we find that K-19 was also the first of the Katherines, “Katherine the Great.” While the backstories of Colin’s life play out, Hassan gets a girlfriend, Katrina, a friend of Lindsey’s. The relationship is cut short when Colin and Hassan find her having sex with TOC in the graveyard where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s corpse is. A fight between TOC and all of the surrounding acquaintances begins when Lindsey finds out that he’s been cheating on her. While recovering from a kick to the groin, Colin anagrams the Archduke's name to dull the pain, and discovers that it is actually Lindsey's great-grandfather, named Fred N. Dinzanafar, that is buried in the tomb.

Colin finds Lindsey at her secret hideout in a cave that she had shown him previously, where he tells her the story of every Katherine he ever loved. Lindsey tells him that she feels so self-centered, claiming that she does not feel sad but instead slightly relieved by TOC's affair. They then confess their love for each other. But when Colin applies the Theorem to him and Lindsey, it calculates that she will dump him in four days. Lindsey then slips a note under his door, four days later, stating that she cannot be his girlfriend because she is in love with Hassan. But she leaves a P.S. stating that she is joking. Colin realizes that his theorem cannot predict the future of a relationship. It can only shed light on why a relationship failed. Despite this, Colin is content not “mattering”. Hassan also states that he is applying for two college classes, which Colin has been trying to convince him to do throughout the book. The story ends with the trio driving to a nearby Wendy's, with Lindsey saying they could just "keep going and not stop."

Awards

An Abundance of Katherines was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book^[1] and received recognition as one of American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults.^[2]

Film adaption

John Green mentioned in Brotherhood 2.0, a video blog he created with his brother, on 10 December 2007 that rights had been bought to make his book into a movie. Green has been asked to write the screenplay.^[3]

References

External links

• Unshelved Book Club on An Abundance of Katherines