An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

This book was recommended to me via Amazon's suggestions based on previous history.  I'm not sure what exactly led to that, but I requested it from the library and picked it up, along with a few others, last week.  Since it is an older book (2006), it has a longer checkout period and went to the bottom of my "to read" pile.  Then yesterday happened.  

Yesterday marked two years since my mother died of cancer.  I woke up sad.  I donated 11" of my hair to Locks of Love.  I felt uplifted and humbled by the Facebook comments about it.  My husband had to cut down a tree at his mother's house that had held his childhood treehouse.  He was sad, and I felt sad for him.  My mother-in-law took my son to Barnes and Noble and ran into my high school best friend.  Their selfie popped up on Facebook.  I laughed thinking imagine if WE had cell phones back then.  I joined my husband shooting.  I still really stink at it, so I felt embarrassed and down on myself.  I'm taking care of my sister's critters while she's away.  I drove over to find I locked the lock I don't have a key for.  That might've been the breaking point.  I cried on her back steps while her dog barked at me then pooped on the floor.  My husband had to come over and break into their house via a bathroom window.  I went home exhausted from a ridiculous emotional roller coaster.

Long story short, I needed to read something funny and happy.  I pulled this out and started reading early afternoon.  While it certainly isn't going on the all-time favorites list, it was a good read that had me smiling.

Colin is a half-Jew former child prodigy who only dates girls named Katherine.  His best friend Hassan is an Arab Muslim, who is also an overweight nerd.  Both speak multiple languages, use "fug" instead of "f*ck* (I won't spoil why), and struggle with the social conventions of American high school society.  They up and decide to take a summer road trip in Colin's beat up old car known as The Hearse.  They drive from the suburbs to Chicago with no real direction or plan and end up in Gutshot, Tennessee.  

Through a bizarre and comical chain of events, they take up residence with a paramedic in training, Lindsey, and her textile factory owning and town historian mother, Hollis, in their bright pink mansion.  Lindsey has a boyfriend also named Colin, former football captain and local big-shot.  Hollis hires Hassan and Colin to interview the old people she hasn't gotten to yet in creating the town's history.  Over the next few weeks, dotted with hilarious and yet deeply philosophical moments, Hassan and Colin really figure out who they are and what they want in life, culminating in a feral hog hunt that does not disappoint.

Being that Colin is a genius, there is a fair bit of math and foreign words, but all are footnoted.  The author even had a real-life math genius write an appendix to prove Colin's theorem correct.  I know I passed the AP Calculus exam, but I skipped the appendix ;)