Sidenote aside, I had been simply dying to get this book, but there had always seemed to be another book I wanted more. But this time I decided to pick up the one John Green teen book I haven't read - An Abundance of Katherines
Stats
Title: An Abundance of Katherines
Author: John Green
Version: 2012 Paperback
(Originally) Published by Penguin Books on September 21st 2006
Length: 227 pages
ISBN: 0141346094
Average rating (Goodreads): 3.66 stars
Review
When I checked out this book on Goodreads for the first time before reading it, I was slightly surprised to see that it had such a low average rating. I mean, it's a John Green book, for God's sake!
The rest of his books have average ratings that are never below 3.9 stars, and most were 4 stars and above, so I was undoubtedly rather surprised to see how low this book had been rated.
After reading it for myself, I do find myself slightly agreeing with the other reviewers, who said that this wasn't as good as John Green's other books.
I'm going to try and not be biased about this just because it is a John Green, but at the end of the day this book simply doesn't match up to the likes of Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska and the Fault in Our Stars.
Firstly, the main character Colin. I know John Green likes to make characters that have flaws so they are realistic and three-dimensional, but Colin. Colin, man. He is whiney and self-absorbed and needy. He lacks any kind of confidence in himself. His way of dealing with an issue is to lie face-down on the floor and he needs his friend Hassan to get him back up on his feet again.
Colin did infuriate me at first, even if these flaws ended up being a little bit endearing to me, but I am aware that they didn't for many other readers. However, because I ended up liking Colin and I liked the way John Green made the flaws fit his personality so well I am going to say that I'm somewhat neutral on Colin's personality.
I just felt that this book was a watered-down version of the amazing books I have read by John Green. There was less adventure about the whole thing, there were fewer of the jokes and quirks that - to me - define John Green's unmistakeable style and the characters were less intense.
The book read to me like someone was trying to imitate John Green and had done only a half-decent job about it.
One the other hand, if this wasn't a John Green book, I would probably be a lot less harsh about it.
The characters are well-written if not three-dimensional or filled with the John Green-ness that I love so much. Their interactions are definitely not wooden and Hassan, Lindsey and Colin work undeniably well as a character set.
The plot flows well and is filled with unique and interesting ideas like having a character who only dates girls named Katherine. I think this plot is definitely a John Green sort of plot, and I love the whole premise behind it, but he didn't seem to do enough with it.
The ending was fantastic, with a nice feel-good note to end on and a sense of adventure stretching out ahead for the three main characters. It's the only part of the book that I felt was 100% unadulterated John Green.
I also did like the few jokes and funny scenes that were put in there, as they also felt very much like John Green's style and they did make me laugh quite a lot. It's only that I didn't feel that the book as a whole was as funny as other John Greens.
The footnotes and various different facts were entertaining to me, but some other readers did not find them so enjoyable. But to me, the good thing about footnotes is you don't have to read them. So it's not a big deal if you don't like the random facts since 50% of them are found in the footnotes.
So, that's my review over. All things considered, I am going to award An Abundance of Katherines:
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