An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines is John Green's second novel. This book follows Colin Halter, a washed up child prodigy who has recently been broken up with by his nineteenth girlfriend. As alluded to in the title, her name (as were the names of the eighteen before her) was Katherine. Sulking, Colin is visited by his best friend Hassan, an overweight, Muslim boy a year older who has no ambitions. Hassan deems that the only way to cheer Colin up is to take him on a roadtrip.

As do all road trips, this comes to a stop in a rural town populated with nice people who were born in the town and will die in the town. They all work in a textiles factory owned by one of the residents, and unbeknownst to them, the factory is becoming less and less needed. Colin meets Lindsey, the daughter of the factory owner (to whom he is attracted, but refuses to let himself completely acknowledge because her name isn't Katherine). Lindsey finds Colin's infatuations with Katherines funny. They become friends and her mother hires both Colin and Hassan to interview the townsfolk who work at the factory. In working with Lindsey, Colin grows more and more attracted to her, but alas, she is unattainable-- she has a boyfriend named Colin.

While somewhat sloppy and a little rambly, Katherines holds better as an interesting read than Green's first book, Looking for Alaska. Colin can be relatable and though he has little to no personality, he has some interesting tidbits of information and his relationship with Hassan deals with the fact that Hassan is a sidekick. (Theme to watch for in Green's work: sidekicks.)

A short note: Colin is half Jewish. It is brought up many times by Hassan and Colin, though the fact that Colin is half Jewish doesn't affect the plot or do really anything for the story. But being fully Jewish, I noticed something. John Green isn't Jewish. Jews only refer to their fabulously puffy hair as Jew-Fros when they are in the presence of people who will find it funny. Usually those people are other Jewish teenagers, because it's a little obnoxious to constantly be calling it something that might be offensive to sensitive people. John Green uses the word "Jew-Fro" in the book a total number of seven(7) times. In dialogue, and in descriptions. I think that this is way more than enough. I've read many Jewish books by Jewish authers about Jewish teenagers for Jewish teenagers and the term Jew-Fro has only turned up once. In all of the books put together. Using slang in such a way when it isn't in character and when it doesn't further the story is taboo and just plain ridiculous.

Overall, this book is a half thumb up. It's a little hard to get through and should have been much shorter.

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at literaryl33t@gmail.com.

-LL

Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska is a Young Adult novel by John Green. The book centers around 17 year old Miles "Pudge" Halter, a geeky, friendless lover of last words who decides to go to a boarding school in Alabama to seek a "Great Perhaps". Spoiler alert: Miles never finds his Great Perhaps. What he does find is friendship, in Chip "the Colonel" Martin, a poor, glib talker and the wild but beautiful Alaska Young. Through the Colonel and Alaska, Miles meets Takumi, an Asian sidekick to their adventures, and later, Lara, a Romanian immigrant who Miles briefly dates. Miles is immediately enticed by Alaska, who smokes and drinks and has a boyfriend; Miles tries his hardest to win Alaska over, and whenever he thinks he is getting close to being closer to her, she slips away.

The book is told in two parts: Before and After. The ominous foreshadowing of the "after" section is usually told through Alaska's dialogue, thus dooming her to something that I won't reveal but is pretty predictable throughout.

The ever-so-trusty website Wikipedia.org mentions that our protagonist is compared to Holden Caulfield, of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. While reading Looking for Alaska, I did not see the similarities, but after some thinking, it is very clear the two could be brothers. Each character is whiny and ultimately going nowhere-- just like both books. They are the same age, both attend boarding school, are virgins (which is stressful for both Holden and Miles, though the former spends more time complaining about it than the latter) and do their best to separate themselves from their families. Holden feels an attachment to a girl, Jane, whom he plans to call but never does so, almost exactly how Miles holds on to Alaska whom he has plans to do things with that are never explained nor played out. Both books have been controversial, with good reason: the principle characters drink, smoke, and talk about things that all teenagers talk about. Since Catcher was written a considerable amount of time before Alaska, it is safe to say it was more contentious than the more recent Alaska. And, as most books will be objectable to some extremists, it seems to me that Looking for Alaska is far more mellow than The Catcher in the Rye, in which Holden calls a prostitute and gets beaten up and goes on drinking binges and is a pathological liar.

Altogether, Looking for Alaska is a well written book. I personally don't choose to read books because of the prose in which they are written though; like most teenagers (and people in general) I read books because the plot is compelling and thought-provoking. While Green's Alaska is thought-provoking, I found myself irritated with every single character and bored- just as the book got interesting, I would turn the page and someone would ruin the scene. The climax of the book happened 139 pages into the book, and being a novel of 221 pages, that leaves 82 pages of falling action. According to the plot diagram my teacher gave to me, a book should have considerably less falling action than rising:

Looking for Alaska's plot diagram looked a little more like this:

Needless to say I felt the book was uninspired and uninspiring. The inside cover promised me a quest, complete with a dysfunctional yet sexy girl and a purpose (at least, that's how I took it) and unfortunately this book didn't provide it. If you are interested in what I was hoping this book would be, I suggest you read Going Bovine by Libba Bray which is about a teenage boy named Cameron who is diagnosed with Mad Cow Disease, which, as you might or might not know, is incurable. Your brain becomes a sponge. And you die. Or live comatose. Bovine is written in a similar fashion as Alaska and has an ending equally tragic yet much more satisfying. This book also is about family, and friendship, and wanting to be accepted (which Alaskatouches on, ever so briefly). Going Bovine is a definite two thumbs up, while Looking for Alaska is a shaky thumb pointing almost downward. (You know what I mean, right?)

If this book is on a list of books to read for school, I suggest you pick another. Don't be fooled by it's length; this book drags on as much as Wuthering Heights.

-LL

Le Premier

This blog is a writing exercise for my English class, which is a prep class for A.P. English the following year. I have never been a fan of being forced to write book reports for books I didn't want to read in the first place, so I figured if the books about which I wrote the reports were books I did want to read, the report would be, well, better. As a zealous reader, this should be easy. In my reviews I will include a list of important characters and an analysis of the protagonist, give the book an overall thumbs up or down, and some other stuff that I don't feel like writing right now.

Thus begins the reviews of the LiteraryL33t.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to email me at literaryl33t@gmail.com.

-LL