All through high school, Colin Singleton, a child prodigy who loves anagramming and finding mathematical formulas, has dated the same nine letters repeatedly. K-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e. Exactly nineteen times. And all nineteen Katherines, dumped him. After the nineteenth Katherine, heartbroken Colin and his best friend Hassan, a lazy Judge Judy addict, decide to go on a Katherine free road trip.
Colin and Hassan end up in Gunshot, Tennessee, which is home to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s grave. Gunshot also presents the two boys with a job offer requiring them to interview the workers at the textile company. Colin and Hassan spend the rest of their summer with Hollis, the owner of a textile company, and her daughter Lindsey. As Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey start to interview the workers Colin starts to notice how important the company is to everyone and how it affects the town’s growth.
Besides interviewing workers, Colin tries to make up a mathematical formula for predicting how long a relationship will last. He tried the theorem on his nineteen previous relationships to help dumpees everywhere. While Colin tries to figure out the formula for each Katherine, he has flashbacks of his relationships and how he was dumped. But Colin just couldn’t figure out the problem he had with Katherine 3, so he called her and it turned out that Colin actually dumped her! Colin and Hassan found this surprising, considering that Colin was always the dumpee and not the dumper. After he tested it on his past relationships the theorem was complete.
When Colin finishes the theorem, Hassan tries to convince him to go shoot a feral pig with Hassan, Lindsey, Lindsey’s boyfriend, and their friends. This ends up with Hassan and Colin almost getting killed! Colin and Hassan get stung by hornets while running away from the deadly pig. Then they see something really unexpected at the graveyard they end up in.
“An Abundance Of Katherines” is more than just broken hearts and mathematical formulas. Colin wonders if love is graphable, and discovers that life is unpredictable. If your name’s Katherine or not, pick up this book and let Colin reveal his discoveries to you.
