Let's clear one thing up right off the bat: The only reason you read this book is because you've become a tiny bit obsessed with the vlogbrothers channel on YouTube. John Green is one of the brothers and he writes Young Adult Fiction. This is his second book, and you will most likely read his other ones in due time because you really are a little bit obsessed. There... I'm glad we cleared that up.
Your love of non-fiction (specifically war) books makes it easy for you (and other people) to forget that you do enjoy novels occasionally. In fact, when you get a novel in your hands, you usually read it faster than you do non-fiction books. Maybe that's one reason you don't read as many novels. You like to savor the experience but you tend to burn through novels too fast to do that. Or maybe you're just a big nerd. Either one works...
"An Abundance of Katherines" is the story of two boys, Colin and Hassan, fresh out of high school, on a road trip to help mend a broken heart who end up in a tiny town in Tennessee. Colin is despondent because his girlfriend recently dumped him, although he shouldn't really be shocked. He's dated nineteen girls and they have all dumped him, never the other way around. Oh, and they are all named Katherine. Every one. Thus, the title of the book.
All of the characters in "An Abundance of Katherine's" are quirky and weird, but very charming and capable of moments of brutal honesty and wonderful insight. You know... kind of like real people. Colin is a former child prodigy and his best friend, Hassan, is more of a smart ass than a smarty pants. The two best friends speak to each other in a familiar "best friend code" of inside jokes and random phrases that perfectly reminded you of being in high school and immediately brought you inside their world. Both boys are outsiders. They're nerds. Colin is a nerd for being a child prodigy who could read the newspaper at the age of two, and Hassan is an outsider for being fat and for being Muslim. And when Lindsey was introduced, sitting behind the counter of the General Store, she seemed so familiar... like, you were pretty sure you'd met that character in real life before. You might even be related to her.
The boys' road trip lands them in Gutshot, Tennessee, of all places, and they quickly come to know several of the inhabitants very well (Lindsey, Katrina, Hollis). The boys are hired to chronicle the history of Gutshot through personal interviews with the town's older citizens. While this main plot unfolds, Colin is also feverishly busy trying to create a mathematical theorem that will accurately predict when any given relationship will end and who will do the breaking up with whom. He hopes that this theorem will finally allow him to "matter" in the world, thereby escaping the curse of child prodigies who so often fade into adult obscurity.
"An Abundance of Katherines" is written the way John Green talks, with a lot of shorter sentences punctuated by very long and profound ones. It makes the book quite readable. The book also has one of the funniest fight scenes you've ever read (pg 177), especially when you consider that it takes place on the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose assassination started the First World War).
Colin's persistent heartache (and other characters') reminded you of how catastrophic everything can feel when you are young. That's a good thing to remember, because you are a parent. Being empathetic with your boys when "catastrophes" hit will help you be able to guide them, or at least it will keep you from being alienated by them for being so callous and uncaring.
The book also reminded you that being a child prodigy isn't really that great. In fact, it's usually kind of tragic (or at least anti-climactic). So, if Nico isn't a prodigy, that might not be something to lament, it might be something to celebrate. And it also reminded you that Linc is going to be just fine in this world even if he has no chance of ever being a genius. And man, that is always a good reminder.
The whole book has a positive feel to it, an unembarrassed optimism that you couldn't help but be infected by. Lindsey's realization that she had always been wearing the personalities that she thought would best please the people around her reminded you that that living a more authentic life, one that isn't concerned with pleasing or impressing others, is a worthy goal. It reminded you that you truly believe that if being a nerd means that you are a more authentic human being (and it usually does), then you'd rather be a nerd every day of the week.
Your only real complaint about the book was the recurring use of the word 'retard'. Yes, it was only ever in dialogue, and yes, it was only to show that the characters in the book talked like kids in the real world, but it still bothered you. In the same way that black people (and the rest of society too) don't want to read or hear the slur 'nigger', parents of children with Down syndrome don't want to read or hear the slur 'retard'. In a way though, the N-word being in books like "Huck Finn" shows us how far American society has come from the bad old days. If this book taught you one thing, it was that the future isn't written and it is not predictable, and that gave you hope. Hope that maybe ten years from now, the use of the R-word in "An Abundance of Katherines" will seem so out of place that it too will illustrate how far we've come as a society.
On to the next book!
-Sam
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