An Abundance of Katherines by John Green *AP (also contains a lot of spoilers from The Phantom of the Opera)

I have now just started to read some young adult fiction. I picked up An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I have only just started, but so far I am enjoying it. I had an epiphany at the beginning of the book actually. I realised that a beginning of anything is either really boring or really confusing. Obviously, I don't mean for books alone, but plays, shows, movies, etc also fall in this category. An Abundance of Katherines was no exception. I found the first chapter a dreadful bore. As I kept reading though, I found the main character funnier and more relatable. I'm really excited to continue reading this book. I have a feeling that the ending will be happy. I love happy endings, even when there is some sadness mixed in. I mean, I saw the Phantom of the Opera on broadway last month, and Christine ends up with Raoul because of the goodness of the Phantom. Of course I was routing for Raoul and Christine, but the Phantom enchanted me with his music and I could hardly bare his sadness as he released Christine to be with Raoul. The ending was bittersweet. I can deal with bittersweet. My problem is when you have these people and everything is awesome (and I'm not talking an action book here) and everyone is picking daisies and then a main character dies. What? I mean if there's gun-slinging across the board at least one of the main characters is bound to die, but when you live in the suburbs with nothing but lame things to do with lame people, you can't turn you're dumb story around by killing the main character suddenly. I suppose it all depends on the book though. If there is a good reason to kill off the character and I believe it, I like it. I guess it is more about perception than the actual book. For instance, I stopped reading Atonement because I heard it was sad in the end. I think partly I just disliked the book and partly I was expecting it to end happily. And so I got bored and moved on. I guess books are really a gamble. You have to be exact so as not to lose your readers. I hope that An Abundance of Katherines continues to make me smile, otherwise it will end up in the back of my mind like its fellow companion Atonement.