Realistic Fiction Book Talk

Green, J. (2006). An abundance of Katherines. New York, NY: Dutton Books.

We’ve all been dumped. But have you ever coped with heartbreak by getting mathematical? This is what Colin Singleton does after being dumped for the nineteenth time by yet another woman named Katherine. Thus, this fabulous, laugh-out-loud book is titled, An Abundance of Katherines.

Colin thinks of himself as a washed-up child prodigy who is no longer anyone’s boyfriend or anyone’s genius. His Judge Judy-loving best friend, Hassan, insists on a road trip to pull him out of his funk and the Chicago natives wind up in Gutshot, Tennessee.

They meet Hollis and her daughter Lindsay, and are offered summer jobs at Hollis’ textile factory. They stay and Colin’s spirits are lifted by a Eureka moment. What if he could mathematically model the course of his romantic relationships and predict the precise time when he would be dumped? Could he actually win the girl?

Colin can anagram anything. He can turn “good at anagramming” into “dragon maggot mania”. Yet, Lindsay insists he can’t tell a good story about his romantic history.  

Colin replies, “My Theorem will tell the story. Each graph with a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

“There’s no romance in geometry,” Lindsey answers.

“Just you wait.”

In Colin’s quest for Underlying Katherine Predictability, he discovers the difference between wanting to matter and doing something that matters. In the appendix of the book, a mathematician derives the equation for Colin’s theorem, then graphs it. You will have another tool with which to analyze your relationships.

John Green has written many books you will love. His humorous writing makes even the most serious issues seem hopeful and even hilarious.