An Abundance of Katherines (in summary)

Green's second book, An Abundance of Katherines, is significantly lighter fare than his first. This novel tells about the adventures of recently-graduated Colin Singleton and his best friend Hassan as they take a road trip and end up in a rural town - Gutshot, Tennessee. The oft-melancholy Colin wants to get away from his hometown of Chicago after high school when he is dumped for the 19th time, by his 19th girlfriend. All 19 of said dumping-girlfriends were named Katherine.

Hassan and Colin decide to stick around for a while in Gutshot and take a job with a woman who keeps the small town in business by runing a factory that produces tampon strings. Her daughter, Lindsey Lee Wells, befriends the boys and eventually helps Colin break his Katherine-streak. But not before Colin develops a complex mathematical formula that he believes can graph the potential life of a romantic relationship between any two individuals, even predicting how long the relationship will last and which person will bring it to an end. Ultimately, the formula fails and Colin concludes that life is unpredictable - that we must each hold on to hope, and take what we can get.

Green's writing is humorous and full of trivia about everything from Archduke Ferdinand to Arabic and other foreign words to mathematical theory. Although Katherines might not work as well as LFA in the classroom, I would recommend it for self-selected personal reading for high school students.

Themes: loneliness, heartache, friendship, laughter
Concerns: language and mild sexual themes

Formulas, anagrams and footnotes: Using 'Katherines' in the classroom

An Abundance of Katherines does not have an overhwelmingly moving theme or plot, but it is an enjoyable read.

A couple of interesting notes about how Katherines could be used in the classroom:

Reading for math class?
Colin develops and explains a verifiable mathematical formula that students could test with any number of variables. Katherines might be a good choice for math teachers looking to liven up their curriculum.

Anagrams
Katherines is full of them. This could be a fun way to get kids to play with words, discovering the flexibility of language instead of constantly focusing on its conventions and constrictions.

Footnotes
John Green is a self-professed trivia Geek; An Abundance of Katherines proves him right. Green includes a number of witty footnotes that students can either ignore or embrace. If they embrace them, they will not only get in the habit of looking to footnotes for information, but they might also become the next champs on High School Jeopardy.

Lit pairing with An Abundance of Katherines?