"An Abundance of Katherines"

By: John Green

(part 2)

Blog post by: Leah Jones

          If you were going on a road trip with your best friend, where would you go? Wouldn't you plan out a destination place? Don't you think that it's a good idea to have a plan when traveling, even a possible backup plan if something goes wrong? Well for Colin and Hassan they felt as though they didn't need a plan. Instead their plan was to drive until they got sick of it. It was all about exploring and going on wild adventures this summer, Hassan's goal was to get Colin's mind of off his ex girlfriend Katherine XIX for awhile. 

          Colin and Hassan drove far and made a few pitstops in between certain towns. Once they reached the town of Gutshot in Tennessee Colin sees a sign off the road that states 'see the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.' Colin is eager to go, but Hassan is giving him a hard time about it since Colin shot down the idea about going to see the 'World's Largest Wooden Crucifix' about two hours earlier that Hassan had suggested. Hassan is unsure about this offsite adventure at first but finally gives in. 

          The boys walked into a store requesting to go see the grave. A young girl named Lindsey Lee Wells explained that she was the tour guide, "Tours start every hour on the hour, cost eleven dollars, and frankly aren't worth it." (31). The boys took the tour and got to know more about Lindsey and her background. Colin and Lindsey realized that they had a lot in common.

          Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey got along very well. Lindsey's mother 'Hollis' offered the boys a job. The job required the boys to interview people around town. Colin and Hassan were supposed to ask different people about a factory that Lindsey's great-grandpa 'Fred N. Dinzanfar' created. Mrs. Hollis Wells stated "I just need you to be reasonably smart and not from Gutshot, and you both fit the bill. Five hundred dollars a week for both y'all. You're hired! Welcome to the Gutshot Textiles family!" (64). Since the boys have no official destination they took the jobs. Mrs. Wells also offered the boys a place to stay, "You can't just stay with strangers, Colin." (90) stated Colin's very concerned parents back at home. 

          After a while Lindsey starts to notice that her mother is acting stranger and stranger by the day. She was determined to get to the bottom of this. One Thursday morning Lindsey jumps onto Colin's bed stating "Get up. We're going to Memphis,....We're skipping work and going to Memphis to spy on Hollis and find out why she was filling the swear jar." (190)

          The boys and Lindsey come together and planned on spying on Mrs. Wells. Eventually the truth came out, they found out that nobody had been buying tampon strings from the family's factory in a long time. Lindsey's mom had been dumping the un purchased products into the ground every night, this way she didn't have to fire anyone. Without this factory many people would be out of a job which would stop their income flow.  This was all starting to make sense. The reason why Colin and Hassan were offered the interview job was so that Mrs. Wells could see why the factory was doing  a lot better back in the old days. Lindsey took this dreadful news very hard, Colin comforted her which lead to a lot of secrets that were shared. 

          Colin is shocked to hear that the 'Archduke Franz Ferdinand' was just an anagram of Lindsey's great-grandpa. Meaning that Ferdinand wasn't actually buried in that grave. 

          Lately Colin had been trying to figure out how to predict relationships since Lindsey and him were officially dating. He had been using a Theorem that involved math which he believed would apparently help him predict his future relationships. The author stated, "The graphs that Colin wants to use for his Theorem all need to cross the x-axis twice (once for when a couple starts dating, and once for the dumping)." (224).  Colin finally figured out the Theorem and was convinced that Lindsey was going to break up with him in exactly four days. The Theorem failed when Lindsey never broke up with Colin. 

         At the end of this book Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey decided to get back on the road and basically see where it took them. Once again they had no plan they were just driving until they didn't want to anymore.

         This book left me on a cliff hanger I wanted to see more of a conclusion. I wanted to know what Colin's parents were going to say after this wild summer trip. This book was sort of predictable, I guessed that Colin and Lindsey would end up together and break the revolution of "Katherine's". The overall plot wasn't great but it was decent. At times it got boring but overall it was an okay book.