a hundred visions and revisions

Yes! I finally got around to reading this one! I’ve had it on my list ever since I read and loved Looking for Alaska earlier this year, and of course I’ve been an avid Brotherhood 2.0 viewer for a while now, but I just hadn’t managed to tackle this one yet. Part of the reason behind that, I think, was that the description just didn’t grab me the way Looking for Alaska did, or some of the other books in my to-be-read stack. But now I can definitely say I wish I hadn’t waited so long – I might like this one even better than Alaska.

The book in a nutshell: self-described “washed-up child prodigy” Colin Singleton has only ever dated Katherines, and has just been dumped by Katherine the 19^th. In an attempt to get Colin out of the dumps, his best friend Hassan decides it’s time for a road trip. Somehow they end up in Gutshot, Tennessee, where they meet a girl named Lindsey and her mom, who owns a tampon string factory and soon hires Hassan and Colin. Oh, and Colin’s trying to come up with a mathematical theorem to determine who will be the dumpee and dumper in every relationship. And then there’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s grave, a crazy hunting trip, and lots and lots of anagrams (not to be confused with pangrams). Crazy fun!

I think maybe part of the reason I liked this one so much is that Colin is SO the type that I would’ve gone for in high school. I love the hot geeky boys! I can’t count out Hassan, though. At first it seemed like he was just there to fulfill the funny fat kid sidekick role, but luckily Green didn’t fall into that trap, and he ends up being a really interesting, likeable character in his own right. I’d actually kind of like to see a sequel focusing on Hassan and his adventures.