Best friends Colin and Hassan are on a road trip trying to figure out where their lives are going. Hassan is trying to figure out of college is the place for him and Colin is recovering from breaking up with his 19th girlfriend named Katherine. They find their way to Gutshot, Tennessee, where they stopped to see the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Instead they meet Lindsey Lee Wells and her mother, Hollis. The boys have stumbled their way into a job interviewing the residents of Gutshot and learning about the history of the little town. Gutshot is a good way for the friends to pass the summer and reflect on their own history. Especially Colin's history with the Katherines. As a way to pass the time - and prevent future heartache - Colin devises an algorithim that will determine how long a relationship will last. Will Colin be able to get past his broken heart to see that he has options that don't include a Katherine? And will Hassan ever decide if college is in his future?
We just took a major roadtrip and a John Green novel makes for a perfect companion. An Abundance of Katherines is about two best friends on their own roadtrip. We never encountered a place like Gutshot, but we sure did have fun. I absolutely loved the narrator and the way he did the voices for the book. Especially the elderly people the boys were interviewing - it seriously cracked me up. Colin was a former child prodigy and ful of completely useless facts that kept popping up throughout the story. Even though the book was written ten years ago, Hassan is the kind of character needed in today's volatile political climate. Hassan was a completely normal teenage boy, who happened to be Muslim. The author did an excellent job at highlighting his normalcy, even normalizing his prayer routine. The story was a fun look at what friendship and love means - with a backdrop of rural Tennessee.
Bottom line - An Abundance of Katherines was a fugging funny book. A lighthearted book about love and friendship. And of course it is by John Green, which automatically makes it a must-read novel.
Details:
- An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
- On YouTube
- Pages:272
- Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
- Publication Date: 9/21/2006
- Buy it Here!
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