An Abundance of Katherines

Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.
—Colin

An Abundance of Katherines is a young adult novel written by John Green. It tells the story of Colin, a recent high school graduate whose girlfriend Katherine has just dumped him. This is made even more traumatic because Colin has dated no fewer than 19 girls named Katherine, all of whom dumped him except for Katherine the Third.

Colin's Middle-Eastern Best Friend, Hassan, talks him into going on a road trip to take his mind off the pain of losing yet another Katherine. They end up in a small town known as Gutshot, Tennessee, and quickly find themselves at the home of a woman who runs a textile factory which manufactures tampon strings (which is the main source of income for the town). She has a daughter named Lindsey, who is smart and funny and has "a smile that could stop wars and cure cancer," but (1) Colin is definitely not interested and (2) Lindsey already has a boyfriend (named Colin) [1]. Colin and Hassan quickly become friends with Lindsey and start having all sorts of strange adventures.

Tropes used in An Abundance of Katherines include:
  • Ambiguous Disorder: Colin, who has an excellent memory and can make connections in everything he reads. Socially, he is so challenged that Hassan needs to tell him when he's boring other people. He obsesses over the name "Katherine" in general and K-19 in particular for much of the book, indicating that he has trouble adjusting to new situations.
  • Applied Mathematics: Colin's attempts at graphing his relationships with the Katherines. The longest equation contains the variables age (A), Popularity Differential (C), Attractiveness Differential (H), Dumper/Dumpee Differential (D), and Introvert/Extrovert Differential (P).
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Averted. The book contains a good number of different languages, all of which are completely correct grammatically and otherwise.
  • Child Prodigy: Colin
  • Coming of Age Story
  • Fat and Proud: Hassan
  • Footnote Fever: The book contains a large number of footnotes, usually containing strange-but-true facts that are irrelevant to the story [2].
  • Foreign Cuss Word: In order of appearance: sitzpinkler (German: wimp/a man who sits to pee), kafir (Arabic: infidel), merde (French: shit), and paardenlul (Dutch: horse's penis).
  • Geeky Turn On: Sort of. Colin's "type" is "not physical but linguistic". He likes Katherines. No nicknames, alternative spellings.
  • Good Parent: Hollis
  • Gosh Hornet: Making a feral pig hunting trip even worse.
  • Goth: Lindsey, in eighth grade.
  • Homeschooled Kids: Colin. Until first grade. Hassan, until high school.
  • I Call Him "Mister Happy": Hassan. Thunderstick. That is all.
  • Inherently Funny Words: Sphincter.
  • Mamet Speak: Most notably in the cave scene.
  • Mouthful of Pi: Colin.
  • Omniglot: Colin, to an extent. Justified in that he's a child prodigy who learned many of the languages at a very young age.
  • One Steve Limit: Averted, obviously.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Colin and Hassan refer to Lindsey's boyfriend as "TOC" (The Other Colin); her other friends are JATT (Jeans Are Too Tight) and SOCT (Short One Chewing Tobacco).
  • Pair the Spares: Hassan and Katrina, Lindsey's only female friend. They break up when Colin and Hassan catch Katrina cheating with TOC.
  • Road Movie: Well a road book actually.
  • Serial Romeo: Maybe not every week, but Colin has dated more girls named Katherine than he's had years in his life.
  • Significant Anagram: When Colin discovers Archduke Franz Ferdinand is an anagram of Fred N. Dinzanfar Lindsey's great-grandfather
  • Teen Genius: Colin worries that he isn't one. "Prodigies learn. Geniuses do."
  • Translation Convention: Averted. Dialogue is in Arabic and German at times.
  • Unusual Chapter Numbers: Occasionally, but always within conventional chapters, with the exception of (epilogue, or the lindsey lee wells chapter). They take the form of The End (of the End) and The Middle (of the Beginning). Also, there are as many numbered chapters as there are Katherines.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Fug
  • When She Smiles: Lindsey. So very much.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: The author had someone else come up with the mathematical formulas in the book, but a few mistakes still slipped through.

[3]

  1. ↑ Colin is fond of numbered lists in the middle of sentences
  2. ↑ but still cool
  3. ↑ An Abundance of Katherines was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book. When author John Green received news of this, he proceeded to do his happy dance. This footage can be found on Youtube.
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