An Abundance of Katherines, and John Green’s beautiful writing.

Out of the five John Green books, this is the last one I had to read. I would have probably read it sooner, but I had a lot of trouble finding it in stores and libraries. I eventually bought it when I went to see John and Hank on The Fault in our Stars tour, because he had all of his books on sale.

An Abundance of Katherines, like any other John Green book, is absolutely beautiful. I’m not talking about the cover (though that was lovely), I’m not talking about the plot, (which was pretty good, but not completely remarkable), I’m talking about the words themselves – the writing.

Like I said, a rather lovely cover

This seems to be the general consensus as regards John Green books. The writing is literally beautiful. I won’t go into it in detail, but it really is extraordinarily beautiful to read, in way that the majority of books aren’t. It’s not because the writing is simple, it’s not because the writing is more complicated, Green is just such an eloquent writer, and it’s completely magnificent.

“What matters to you defines your mattering.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it’s impossible to tell because I’m underwater.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

Colin Singleton is a former child prodigy with a thing for Katherines. As in his dating history consists of nineteen Katherines. And he’s been dumped by said nineteen Katherines. After finishing school his best (and only) friend, the Judge-Judy-loving, overweight, Muslim, Hassan convinces him that the only way to get over Katherine XIX is a road trip. This road trip leads them to the Tennessee town of Gunshot, where they stop for a tour, and end up with a job and a place to stay – with Hollis, arguably the most important woman in town, and her daughter, and proud citizen of Gunshot, Lindsey.

While in Gunshot, Colin stumbles across his idea. The idea that will take him from a washed up child prodigy, to a genius, mentioned in the same breath as Einstein and Pythagoras.

A theorem of love.

Specifically, a theorem that will allow you to measure the length of a potential relationship, and who is likely to be dumper/dumpee. Calculated using a lot of maths, taking into account factors such as popularity, age, likeliness of being a dumpee/dumper.

If it works, this idea could give Colin what he wants, fame. Not fame as in Kim Kardashian, or Katy Perry, but fame as in Shakespeare, or Pythagoras – fame for centuries to come, to be remembered past his days.

Well, if he could get it work that is.

A lot of people think of An Abundance of Katherines as the worst of John Green’s books, but I really don’t agree with them. Personally, while I prefer A Fault in our Stars, and Will Grayson Will Grayson, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did Paper Towns, and even Looking for Alaska.

I found the characters were all quite well-rounded, and I didn’t dislike anybody, which is quite unusual, as it probably would be for most people. The plot wasn’t amazing, I’ll be honest, but it certainly wasn’t bad, I’d chalk it up as solidly above average.

All in all I’d probably give An Abundance of Katherines 3.5 out of five stars.

A bit more than an author

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of going to see John and Hank Green when they came to Dublin on “The Fault In Our Stars” tour, which for those who have been living under a rock, is the multi-award winning book by John Green.

John and Hank are the Vlogbrothers on YouTube, and they run several other channels as well, such as Crash Course and SciShow. John writes books, such as Looking For Alaska and The Fault In Our Stars, and Hank makes music, about topics such as Harry Potter and Angler fish mating techniques (Don’t be put off, they’re actually really good songs).

The event was in the RDS, and due to the fact that I got there two hours before it was due to start to queue, I was only a few rows from the front, and managed to get a view unobstructed by the dreaded columns.

I find myself wondering how many people showed up to the event thinking it would be like a normal book tour, especially if they were unaware of Nerdfighteria, and even Hank for that matter.

You may be wondering what a Nerdfighter is.

A Nerdfighter is a fan of John and Hank. Contrary to popular belief, Nerdfighters don’t fight nerds, but rather fight for nerds, and for intellectualism. From personal experience, I find Nerdfighteria as a whole, quite a pleasant group of fans, or at least as pleasant as a group of fans can be, when your demographic is age 13-17.

So on to the event itself.

To start off John talked for a while about how he came up with the idea for The Fault In Our Stars (TFIOS). He talked about how he used to work in a children’s hospital, and how he was absolutely terrible at working in said children’s hospital. He explained how since then he had always wanted to write a book set in that environment, but how it never seemed to work until TFIOS. He talked about Esther Earl, and how she inspired him. For those who don’t know, Esther was a Nerdfighter who died of cancer in 2010 at age 16. She was and continues to be a large influence on Nerdfighteria, TFIOS is dedicated to her, the charity This Star Won’t Go Out, was established in her memory, and her birthday, August 3rd, has become a Nerdfighter holiday, a time to celebrate family.

He then read from the first chapter of TFIOS, and answered some questions about the book, and the writing process.

Then Hank came out and played some songs, before they both answered some questions on a timer, and John slapped Hank, for answering when the timer went off to signal the end of question time. They attempted to speak some Irish, commented on the weather and posed for Photoshop.

Then Hank sung some more songs, including Rebecca Black which was fun, and wore a horse head because why not eh?

I wasn’t lying. The horse head happened.

The entire hall (it was actually a society library, but you get the gist) sang along to a bit of the Proclaimers, and then most people queued for another hour or so (or two or three probably by the end of the night) to get things signed, which to be honest was worthwhile queueing for.

Signed with a Hanklerfish.

I think the best thing about events such as this, is the sense of companionship. You’re in a room packed full of people who love the same thing as you, and to me that’s one of the best feelings. The amount of people in Harry Potter or Doctor Who shirts, or really any other fandom was lovely to see, because it sometimes feels like these things aren’t as popular in Ireland, and it’s lovely to see that this really isn’t true.

I genuinely can’t fault this event, it was completely amazing.

So until next time, DFTBA.