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An Abundance of Katherines Library Binding – October 16, 2008
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Michael L. Printz Honor Book
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
New York Times Bestseller
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy–loving best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.
- Print length228 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level9 - 12
- Lexile measure0890
- Dimensions6 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
- PublisherTurtleback Books
- Publication dateOctober 16, 2008
- ISBN-101606860909
- ISBN-13978-1606860908
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Product details
- Publisher : Turtleback Books (October 16, 2008)
- Language : English
- Library Binding : 228 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1606860909
- ISBN-13 : 978-1606860908
- Reading age : 12 - 13 years, from customers
- Lexile measure : 0890
- Grade level : 9 - 12
- Item Weight : 12.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,719,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,441 in Teen & Young Adult Humorous Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse (youtube.com/crashcourse). You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com.
John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They appreciate the humor and insightful narrative. The characters are described as funny, interesting, and strong. Readers praise the writing quality as fabulous, simple, and easy to read. The emotional depth of the story is praised as heartbreaking, love, friendship, and travel.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate the author's skillful writing style and references to literature. However, some readers felt the story lacked depth and complexity.
"...I think he's hilarious and perfectly written...." Read more
"Easy to connect with the characters, very relatable, good humor. I’ve read almost every one of John Greens books and have never been disappointed!..." Read more
"...novels TFiOS and PT both have some deeper characters and better stories, AAoK was lacking...." Read more
"...It's a quick read--Green's prose are ridiculously smooth and each sentence leads into the next so well that the pages flip faster and faster." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find it entertaining, funny, and engaging. The writing is described as witty, snarky, and quick. Many readers found the book laugh-out-loud funny in many places. It is considered a clever read with enough sophistication and quirkiness for everyone.
"...The two worked together perfectly and were entertaining...." Read more
"Easy to connect with the characters, very relatable, good humor. I’ve read almost every one of John Greens books and have never been disappointed!..." Read more
"...If you enjoyed math in high school, this will be particularly fun to read. If you didn't, don't worry, he makes it easy to grasp...." Read more
"...Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Kathrines is a fun story filled with memorable one liners, hilarious jokes and moments, and tons..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's insight. They find the descriptions clear and insightful, with clever humor and a thoughtful narrative that explores the meaning of life. The attention to detail is remarkable, and the math talk throughout the book provides a new perspective.
"...A final thing I loved about the novel was the intricacy of everything and the way everything was connected...." Read more
"...Sure it produces a few nice graphs, but I was hoping to see all 19 graphed out...." Read more
"...filled with memorable one liners, hilarious jokes and moments, and tons of trivia...." Read more
"...(and very interesting historical, scientific and mathematical tidbits) to the narrative...." Read more
Customers enjoy the intricate and interesting characters in the book. They find them likable and relatable, with entertaining conversations between them. The strong female character Lindsey is also appreciated.
"...He's amazing with characters and each is so intricate and interesting and none are cliche to a fault...." Read more
"...I liked the characters we met in Gutshot and I hope Hollis figures something out." Read more
"Easy to connect with the characters, very relatable, good humor. I’ve read almost every one of John Greens books and have never been disappointed!..." Read more
"...But it is perfect for the voice of this story. If you enjoyed math in high school, this will be particularly fun to read...." Read more
Customers find the writing quality good. They describe it as funny and engaging. The language is amazing and intriguing. It's an easy read, though some parts can be difficult. Readers appreciate the narrator's voice and well-rounded characters.
"...anyway." John Green's books are never boring, and his language is always amazing and intriguing!" Read more
"...It's a quick read--Green's prose are ridiculously smooth and each sentence leads into the next so well that the pages flip faster and faster." Read more
"...It remains smooth throughout the novel, and is saturated with an intense dose of wit...." Read more
"...Hassan is the perfect foil for Colin--loud and funny, more than happy to call Colin out when he's spouting too many useless facts or being too self-..." Read more
Customers find the book emotionally engaging. They mention it's heartwarming, with relatable characters and a lot of teenage angst. The stories are simple yet deeply human, with empathy and safety.
"...is a fun story filled with memorable one liners, hilarious jokes and moments, and tons of trivia...." Read more
"...t" - about connecting with the human condition in touching, funny, memorable, and deeply meaningful ways...." Read more
"...I really liked how it was quirky, funny, thought provoking, and emotional...." Read more
"...It captures the angst, the good intentions, the mistakes, and the things that don't turn out the way you wanted, along with the things that do...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the storyline. Some find the premise interesting, the plot simple, and the ending happy. Others felt the characters were depthless, the plot unrealistic, and the ending predictable. The book had many footnotes that contributed to the storyline.
"...The appendix was a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT (which anagrams to UNHAPPIEST DEMOTING which is what happened with my 3.5* falling to a 3*)!..." Read more
"...The ending was wrapped up beautifully and I loved when he described all the Katherine's in detail because I had waited for that the entire novel and..." Read more
"...The premise of the novel sounds a little wacky, but that at least puts it on the safe side of the "fun but slightly unrealistic/realistic but..." Read more
"...It was an interesting premise, and I borrowed it from Libby and read it on my Kindle...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book. Some find it engaging and light-hearted, a nice change from depressing works. Others feel it's predictable and boring, with the first few chapters explaining the story. The book lacks challenge or intrigue for some readers, making it feel pointless.
"...reason I gave it 3 stars was because it didn't stand out and parts of it were boring. The story didn't really go anywhere per say...." Read more
"...with characters and each is so intricate and interesting and none are cliche to a fault...." Read more
"...They feel a bit pointless, and while some flashbacks are funny (like Colin getting dumped immediately by Katherine 1), most scenes just tend to drag..." Read more
"...I say this because the book is not challenging or intriguing, and it seems as if younger kids would enjoy the book rather than a high school student..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2018I think John Green is brilliant. Period. Even if someone doesn't like YA novels, there's no denying his talent. One of my favorite aspects of his writing is the characters he creates. He's amazing with characters and each is so intricate and interesting and none are cliche to a fault. Some characters, like "The Other Colin" in this novel are cliche on purpose, because TOC is supposed to be numbskull football player. In this book in particular, the characters are crazy good. Colin with his random facts and prodigy mind reminds me of me of my favorite character from Criminal Minds, Dr. Spencer Reid. Hassan is probably my favorite character with his humor and personality. I think he's hilarious and perfectly written. Lindsey turns out to be a sort of atypical popular girl, and I'll admit I didn't always love her character, but that doesn't mean she wasn't well-written.
I also particularly enjoyed Colin and Hassan's relationship. The two worked together perfectly and were entertaining. Hassan calls Colin "kafir" and they often refer to each other as "sitzpinkler," which loosely translates to being a wimp. They also use "dingleberries" as a sort of safe word to indicate when the other has gone too far. Their friendship is also admirably loyal.
I also adored all the footnotes! They were funny and give insight in a way that totally worked with Colin's personality.
A final thing I loved about the novel was the intricacy of everything and the way everything was connected. For example (spoiler alert), Colin and Hassan end up in Gutshot simply to see where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was buried, and at the end, Colin realizes that it never was the Archduke, but instead Lindsey's great-grandfather. "Fred N. Dinzanfar, that anagramming bastard." One of Colin's greatest pleasures also happens to be anagramming.
The ending was wrapped up beautifully and I loved when he described all the Katherine's in detail because I had waited for that the entire novel and it was entertaining. My favorite was probably the sixth, "she was excellent at both pottery and pull-ups, two fields of endeavor at which I have never excelled, and although between us we could have made an unstoppable force of intelligence and upper-body strength and coffee mug-making, she dumped me anyway." John Green's books are never boring, and his language is always amazing and intriguing!
- Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2024I've been trying to read all of John Green's books and I think this is the last one. It was an interesting premise, and I borrowed it from Libby and read it on my Kindle. There are a bunch of footnotes (which are weird to read on a Kindle) but that added some extra entertainment. I liked the characters we met in Gutshot and I hope Hollis figures something out.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2024Easy to connect with the characters, very relatable, good humor. I’ve read almost every one of John Greens books and have never been disappointed! Probably my favorite author.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2015[copied from my Goodreads review)
Was on the fence between 3* and 4* and I think the disappointing appendix caused it to drop down to 3*.
I'm a huge fan of John Green having already read The Fault in Our Stars (5*) and Paper Towns (4*) before this one. I follow him on Twitter, listen to the podcast he does with his brother, and even enjoy watching his 15-minute long AFC Wimbly Wombly YouTube videos where he just talks while playing FIFA 14. But An Abundance of Katherines feels like a lesser novel than the previous two I've read, and that may be simply because it was his second novel and I'm reading them all in reverse order.
AAoK tells the story of Colin Singleton, a child prodigy who, as he is approaching adulthood, comes to the realization that there's no such thing as adult prodigy. His ability to anagram any phrase instantly, his voracity for reading and learning, even his polyglotism will all be less and less impressive as he grows up. And so he begins to worry about what his lasting mark on society will be.
On top of all that, he's dated (and been dumped by) 19 different Katherines. No Kates or Kathryns or Catherines; for some reason, he's gone out with 19 Katherines and has always been dumped by them. He eventually has a "Eureka moment" and realizes he may be able to be remembered if he can mathematically show why these relationships didn't work out. He starts off with some simple equations and eventually works on something only math geniuses could comprehend or plot in an attempt to show how long a relationship will last and who will dump whom. If he could only make this equation work, maybe he can see a future where he and Katherine XIX would get back together.
All of this math occurs away from home (it wouldn't be a John Green novel without teenagers going on a road trip away from their parents). He and his best friend, Hassan (an overweight, Muslim slacker one year older than Colin, who'd rather sit at home and watch Judge Judy than apply to college) drive off and eventually come across Gutshot, TN—home of the final burial place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (you know the guy whose assassination prompted WWI?). Here, the two meet Lindsey Lee Wells (it wouldn't be a John Green novel without a young girl with three names)—convenience store worker extraordinaire & Ferdinand grave tour guide. She figures mattering (or ever leaving Gutshot) is overrated and is more than happy to grow old and die in her little town, a nice foil to Colin.
Lindsey's mother, Hollis, runs a factory that basically only produces tampon strings and also employs basically the whole town. She hires the boys to join her daughter in a new mission—interviewing people who work or have worked at the factory to create an oral history of Gutshot. The boys agree and the three of them have some wacky adventures. Colin continues to work on his Theorem, Hollis meets a hot chubby chaser who makes him second guess his Muslim beliefs, and Lindsey acts all manic pixie dream girly, all while dating TOC (The Other Colin), your standard captain of the football team popular guy.
Whereas Green's previous (to me but later in, you know, real time) novels TFiOS and PT both have some deeper characters and better stories, AAoK was lacking. Sure it made me chuckle but Colin was overly annoying, Lindsey overly MPDG, and Hassan overly funny about his weight. Everything felt just a little too unrealistic (19 Katherines?! Unintentionally?!?) and parts of it were kind of boring. The will-they-or-won't-they between Colin and Lindsey was cute but predictable. The main thing this book had going for it were the footnotes used throughout (reminded me of all the great footnotes in A Selective History of Max Werner) and one of the footnotes promised an appendix that would explain the math behind Colin's Theorem.
Well, I guess the appendix was written for people like John Green who aren't good at math. It describes what an equation is and how you'd graph one but doesn't get into the actual math behind this:
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1444451863i/16503282.png
There's no talk about if this equation is graphing in radians or degrees. There's no talk about what the rightmost part (the one with the absolute value) is doing there. I was a math major and I'm trying to "see" what this is doing and I cannot grasp parts of it and when I try to graph it, I get errors with certain values of H. I was hoping the appendix would be an actual mathematical paper going into how the mathematician behind this equation came up with it. Sure it produces a few nice graphs, but I was hoping to see all 19 graphed out. We got the stories of all 19 Katherines, but I wanted to see the math of all 19 Katherines!
The appendix was a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT (which anagrams to UNHAPPIEST DEMOTING which is what happened with my 3.5* falling to a 3*)!
I'm sure I'll still get around to reading Looking for Alaska someday (probably closer to when that movie is coming out, but I'm in no real hurry any longer. Maybe this book was just a sophomore slump..
Top reviews from other countries
- Karol AhumadaReviewed in Mexico on November 9, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Very interesting, I loved the ending. Arrived the next day i ordered it
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in India on July 17, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars A fun read
Relatable, interesting and definitely funny!
Most importantly the formula/theorem was for real! A must read of all the john green books!
-
FroschköniginReviewed in Germany on September 24, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Wohlfühlbuch für Nerds und die Freunde von Nerds
Dies ist bisher wohl John Green's thematisch leichtestes Buch. Oder besser: das einzige thematisch leichte Buch von diesem Autor (wobei ich die in Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Autoren enstandenen Bücher, also "Will Grayson, Will Grayson (mit David Levithan) und "Let It Snow" nicht mitrechne. Ersteres, weil es ebenfalls alles andere als leicht ist. letzteres, weil ich es noch nicht kenne). "An Abundance of Katherines" ist dabei keinesfalls ohne tieferen Gehalt - wenn der auch in der Erkenntnis des Protagonisten gipfelt, dass sich die Zukunft nicht vorausberechnen lässt, sondern einfach gelebt werden sollte. Nein, es passiert wirklich nicht sehr viel in diesem Buch, schon gar nicht dafür, dass eben dieser Protagonist, nachdem zum neunzehnten Mal ein Mädchen namens Katherine mit ihm Schluss gemacht hat, sich gemeinsam mit seinem Freund Hassan auf einen Roadtrip begibt. Amerika, Roadtrip - da denkt der Leser an unendliche Weiten und tausende von Highway-Kilometern, und da die beiden aus Chicago sind, bevorzugt vielleicht an die Westküste, Kalifornien, oder?
Aber dies ist eben ein Buch von John Green, und deshalb fahren Hassan und Colin gerade mal bis Tennessee und stranden in einem Kaff mit dem einladenden Namen Gutshot, weil es dort angeblich das Grab des österreichischen Erzherzogs Franz Ferdinand zu besichtigen gibt. Das möchte Colin gerne sehen, nerdig wie er ist. Und wem das zu nerdig ist, das und die Tatsache, dass Colin und Hassan drei Wochen in einer rosa Villa in Gutshot leben und sich damit Geld verdienen, dass sie die Belegschaft einer Fabrik interviewen, in der die Ziehfäden (oder wie immer sie heißen mögen) für Tampons hergestellt werden - wer also das zu abgedreht findet, liest das Buch besser nicht.
Ein bisschen selber Nerd muss man wohl schon sein, um Gefallen daran zu finden. Wenn diese kleine Grundvorausetzung gegeben ist, wird man aber die Wortgefechte, die Hassan und Colin sich liefern, mit mehr als nur einem Grinsen im Gesicht lesen. Hassan, übergewichtig, mit dem nötigen Unernst und Pragmatismus ausgestattet, der seinen Freund gerne mal "sitzpinkler" nennt, stiehlt Collin als Protagonist die Show. Aber beide ergänzen sich hervorragend gegenseitig, wenn es darum geht, aus einer Situation das Humormaximum herauszukitzeln. Meistens, jedenfalls.
Ach ja: wer keine Fußnoten mag, oder diese in einem Roman nicht erwartet, und deshalb diese einfach überschlägt, verpasst eigentlich das Beste. Sie dienen nämlich dazu, einerseits zu zeigen, wie unglaublich belesen und wissend Colin, der mal ein Wunderkind war und kein Genie zu werden droht, ist und wie unglaublich wenig er mit diesem Wissen wird anfangen können, wenn es um das pralle Leben geht.
Es geht - Wunderkind! - in diesem Buch ziemlich viel um Mathematik. Man braucht allerdings keinerlei Ahnung davon zu haben und muss die Formeln, mit denen Colin versucht, die Vorhersagbarkeit von Beziehungsenden zu berechnen, nicht verstehen - wer möchte das schon?
Und vielleicht noch eine kleine "Warnung": "political correctness" ist weder Hassans noch Colins Ding.
Vielleicht sollte man nicht mit "An Abundance of Katherines" anfangen, wenn man noch nie etwas vorher von John Green gelesen hat. Aber für Fans unverzeichtbar.
- EricaReviewed in Canada on April 23, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved It!
I didn't know what to expect with this book. I had previously read Looking For Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. But I'm pleased to say that this book absolutely surpassed my expectations. It was different... in a good way! An Abundance of Katherines made me laugh out loud on so many occasions. The main character Colin is so smart and funny - I never wanted him to stop talking. This book is so well written I didn't want to put it down. All hail John Green.
-
AlessandraReviewed in Italy on August 26, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimo
Il libro è arrivato in ottime condizioni e nei tempi previsti. Il libro era un regalo per un' amica a cui piace molto John Green come autore e ne è rimasta soddisfatta. Il prezzo è molto conveniente. Penso inoltre che il libro in lingua originale sia un ottimo modo per esercitarsi con la lingua.