We have all gone through dating people and ended up getting dumped at some point in our lives out of the blue. Colin Singleton has been there many times, in fact 19 times. Unrealistically, all of the girls had the same name, Katherine. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is a humorous and even more intelligent novel using enjoyable mathematical problems that help Colin, the main character find himself.
Colin being devastated after being dumped by nineteen Katherines is dragged by his best friend, Hassan on a road trip to Tennessee that ended up changing his perspective of life. I admired how John Green had Hassan and Colin’s personalities and appearances opposite from each other, but still connected through other ways, almost as if they completed each other. They had a consistent relationship and both helped each other with what they specialized in, which can be relatable for teen friendships. Along with creating realistic friendships, Green painted a great image of the characters and the setting, providing excessive pictures in my mind of the genius and skinny, Colin Singleton and Hassan being chubby, lazy, and liked by everyone. Using a variety of different language the two boys spoke made it unique and attractive; Hassan spoke Arabic and Colin spoke in any of the 12 languages he knew. Green always put the meaning in the foot notes of the words or even explained what they were referring to. I certainly thought it was an enjoyable and simple way to understand the writing.
The child prodigy, Colin wasted so much time about trying to make his theorem work to predict the duration of a relationship; he could not enjoy his life. He so badly wanted to become a genius and make his big “discovery” that he did not get the chance to appreciate the people around him. Until, Colin met a girl Lindsey who opened up his eyes on the truth and beauty of life. He learned to relax and sit back and see where the future takes him. All this time he wanted to be special and matter, however he ended up “not unique” and is perfectly satisfied with that. It shows how these teenagers in the book mirror the real world by just trying to find themselves in life like everyone else.