AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES
By John Green
Dutton, 2006
I’m not a very trendy book reader. Mostly I read whatever falls into my hands or catches my eye. And as anyone who reads this blog knows, I am fascinated by the ways in which books happen to fall into my hands and catch my eye, by the strange and wonderful connections these chance encounters represent. All this, of course, is my long-winded way of acknowledging that it is unusual for me to have read a book as trendy and “in” as AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES. And yet, I did.
First of all, I owe my slip into coolness to my friend Jane, who is much more saavy than I and who also happens to direct one of the coolest libraries around these parts. Jane scored me the library copy of AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES the moment it arrived.
Second of all, I enjoyed John Green’s first book, the Printz Award-winning novel Looking for Alaska. (Which, by the way, only ended up in my TO READ pile because of another saavy friend, Eric Luper.)
Thirdly, there has been a great deal of cyber-hoopla in kidlit blogland regarding Mr. Green and his new book. He seems to have visited all the cool blogs I follow.
Fourthly, when I got the book in my hands, I was drawn in by the clever and attractive cover and the premise: a teenaged boy who is plagued by girls named Katherine. (“ … not Katies or Kats or Kitties or Cathys or Rynns or Trinas or Kays or Kates or, God forbid, Catherines. K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. He had dated nineteen girls. All of them had been named Katherine. And all of them—every single solitary one—had dumped him.”)
And so I can add my quiet endorsement to the many, many endorsements already out there. AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES is a fantastic young adult novel. Read it and be cool!