Here's To Your Inner Teenager

A-peep remarked that I'm going through books like crazy these days.  She's right, and there are several reasons for all the reading of late:

*  Grad school starts in January.  I'm convinced that once I'm required to read as "work" and not as "fun" I will never want to read again.  I will spend months on end whining and complaining about what I "have" to read instead of what I "get" to read.  Enjoy these book reviews now because it'll be like 7 years until I post any more of them.

*  Reading is escapism.  Life is getting really scary more complicated.  I read to enter into someone else's experience and forget about my problems for a bit.

*  I'm going through easy reads right now.  You'll notice I'm not exactly tackling War and Peace.  I'm reading pretty much whatever speaks to me from the shelf.  {Pssst!  B!  Hey!  Over here!}

*  I'm a book nerd.  Just sayin.  Also?  I'm about 15 magazines behind with The New Yorker.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

The next time you want to read Young Adult Fiction, reach for this one, or anything by John Green.  I read The Fault in Our Stars a while ago - before I reviewed books on the blog - and absolutely loved it.  In fact, I've got a couple of Barnes & Noble coupons that are about to expire, and I'm going to use one to purchase that book so I can read it again, repeatedly.

An Abundance of Katherines is the story of Colin Singleton, child prodigy and all-around dork.  The book takes place during the summer before his senior year of high school, and he has just been unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend.  His 19th girlfriend.  His 19th girlfriend in a row named Katherine.  The guy has issues, and boy does he know it.

He hits the road with his irreverent Muslim, chubby, witty, hilarious best bud, Hassan.  And they end up in Gunshot, Tennessee, with some new peeps and new problems on their hands.  In the midst of changing events, Colin works feverishly on a relationship theorem that will predict the future of relationships based upon who is the Dumper and Dumpee, according to a set of specific criteria he has created.

Green's writing is dead-on teenage speak.  But he doesn't stop there.  His plots are complex and his characters are endearing and you will care what happens to them.  You will love them and their snarky-ness.  He has a few other books out, and I want to read them all.  The language of the books doesn't scream Young Adult Fiction, though.  In many ways this work is as sophisticated as regular adult fiction - just minus the abundance (pun!) of cuss words and bedroom scenes.  This is appropriate for a younger audience and, you know, yours truly.  :)

The book is written from a young guy's point of view and would definitely resonate with the male reader.  About 10 pages into it, I texted my brother and told him to go get it.  I'd also love for G to read it, but since it's not about political science or killing war machine doll thingies, I don't think he will.  That said, the female reader will enjoy it immensely.

Read this one!  You'll love it.