An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Too much swearing - taking the Lord's name in vain, F-bomb and not as good as The Fault in Our Stars. There was a scene of a girl riding a guy in a field completely naked, so if you want your teen to read about it, this book is for you.  I suppose it isn't as bad as a movie scene of it, but still. It was still pretty good though, and some parts were so funny I laughed out loud. The story was kind of flat for me in parts, but the book at the end was very satisfying as far as my tastes go.

I think John Green is a very good writer.  I really enjoy his style of writing and how I connect and understand what is written.  I understand all the references he makes and this enhances my understanding of what message I take from the book.  The math footnotes were interesting as well and I enjoyed reading the appendix explaining the math footnotes at the end.  If you can make math interesting, you've got talent! Daniel Biss wrote that part, but it was amusing as well, which I didn't expect coming from a math person.

I think the story was somewhat unrealistically optimistic, but, it's a story.  I don't know how many parents would let their children take a road trip to they don't know where and then stay at a total stranger's house for the entire summer, who just happens to be very wealthy and have a beautiful daughter who happens to be the same age as the self-proclaimed unpopular nerd teen boys who stop at her gas station to see the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria's grave in the middle of Gutshot Tennessee. But I didn't really care, because the novel was great and whose to say it's impossible to happen?  I found it interesting that Colin, the main character, was best friends with a Muslim person named Hassan. I enjoyed how the Muslim culture was brought into the novel in a nice way and how kind Hassan was.  Such a potent culture so violent in the news with such a kind person in the novel really enhanced the book's interesting factor. I would give this book an 8/10. Maybe a 7/10 because of the flat parts.  7 1/2/10.