An Abundance of Katherines

For all the times I said that I don’t like romances, I sure review a heck ton of romances. This will not change today with John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, a YA novel about finding yourself in the middle of nowhere.

There’s something about Green and his writing that makes it hard to put down, chiefly the way humor and sincerity collide. Everything that happens is clearly told to appeal to teenagers, from Hassan’s jokes to shooting a hornet’s nest out of a tree. Yet Green makes the quiet moments his everything. The themes in the story--from making a difference in the world to what love is--apply to the youngest of tweens and the oldest of adults. Together, it makes an interesting story that tells so much more than just a road trip.

The characters, of course, are the ones who make it happen, but the narrator for the novel is what makes it stand out. Though the reader follows Colin throughout the story, the narrator stops to make hilarious and insightful remarks about the world. The footnotes, frequent enough to make sense but not so frequent as to annoy, become the vehicle (pun intended) for that voice. In this, the narrator becomes as much of a character as the characters themselves.

Recommended for all the prodigies of the world.

--Grace Nask