Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had never heard of John Green until Rainbow Rowell, who is a friend, was excited that he, like she, was coming to an author panel that was being set up by another friend who runs a great independent bookstore.  "John Green is a MONSTER get!" she proclaimed.

So I read The Fault in our Stars.  I laughed.  I cried.  It was good.  Well-written, not typical, etc.  I realize writing this review that I never wrote a review, so I sure need to do that, but my problem with Fault was the contrivance of the Dutch author and how that all fit into the story.  I found it not real in a book that was extraordinarily real.

Fast forward to An Abundance of Katherine.  Contrived story line but one that felt real regardless, perhaps because I have a bright kid who some consider to be a prodigy and Colin's concern that prodigies only learn but geniuses do is something I can already see my kid contemplating.  And the question of how to "matter" is one that still echoes in my own life.

But beyond all of that, I enjoyed this book more than Fault.  Maybe it's because it didn't make me cry.  Maybe it's because I love stories that are compartmentalized to give you a sense of place (Gutshot).  Maybe it's because the set-up was so unreal, yet real, that there was nothing jarring in it that pulled me out of the story to question the contrivance.  Or maybe it was the ideas floating around in these kids' heads;

"I think mattering is a piss-poor idea.  I just want to fly under the radar, because when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that's when you get shot down.  The bigger deal you are, the worse your life is.  Look at, like, the miserable lives of famous people...there's a word in German for it...Schadenfreude."

"Son, if there's one thing I know it's that there's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what."

"You're so goddamned scared of the idea that someone might dump you that your whole fugging life is built around not getting left behind.  Well, it doesn't work, kafir.  It's just--it's not just dumb, it's ineffective.  Because then you're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what?  When you act like that, no one likes you."

"Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?  If people could see me the way I see myself--if they could live in my memories--would anyone, anyone love me?"

"I'm full of shit.  I'm never myself.  I've got a Southern accent around the oldsters; I'm a nerd for graphs and deep thoughts around you; I'm Miss Bubbly Pretty Princess with Colin.  I'm nothing.  The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real...the only sentence that begins with 'I' that's true of me is I'm full of shit.

"The past is a logical story.  It's the sense of what happened.  But sense it is not remembered, the future need not make any fugging sense at all."

"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."


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Book Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dystopian future stories intrigue the heck out of me.  Even dystopian present stories intrigue me; stories about how the world would be if we gave in to our worst selves.  Stories like "The Most Dangerous Game" and 1984 and Anthem.

The new generation of these stories was officially kicked off with the Hunger Games trilogy, which I found to be readable and, of course, intriguing.  So of course I had to read Divergent

I liked it.  The factions were, um, intriguing.  I did question their odd names, though a Q&A with the author in the back of my edition explains, "...I did intentionally choose unfamiliar words, for an assortment of reasons.  One of them is that I wanted to slow down comprehension of what each faction stands for, so you learn as much by observing as by the name of the faction itself.  Another is that the definitions of the more obscure words are more specific, in interesting ways.  And a third is -- since I'm being honest here -- that they sound cooler."  However, moreso than their odd names was that they didn't match; Candor, Abnegation and Amity are all nouns.  Dauntless and Erudite are both adjectives.  This little "lack of detail" bothered me.  Then I got to the end of the book and realized that the "doing" factions, the ones who are the most active in trying to change the world, whether for good or bad, are adjective factions.  If that was a conscious choice, bravo Ms. Roth.

I found Roth's writing to range from passable to effective.  She's telling an action story, after all, so there isn't much room for reflection.  But the few moments of authorial insight into the human character she gave us made me wish for so much more.

When recently-removed-from-Abnegation Tris reflects, "I guess I haven't really had a friend, period.  It's impossible to have real friendship when no one feels like they can accept help or even talk about themselves."

Or after Edward's violent injury when Tris reflects, "I don't want to cry for Edward--at least not in the deep, personal way that you cry for a friend or a loved one.  I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I could not see a way to mend it."

Or when she's falling in love and she thinks, "And even though it seems impossible that he could feel something for me, given all that I'm not ... maybe it isn't."

I'm eager to continue this story.  I'm hopeful that there will be lessons about how human nature must contain portions of all these factions, and many more, in order to create individual balanced lives, which creates a balanced society.  I'm hopeful that lessons like the one that sticks with me most from the Harry Potter books ("We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”) will be the overarching moral of the trilogy.

But if this does not come to pass, at least I know it will be a darn good adventure read.


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