"An Abundance of Katherines"- Reading Response

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Colin Singleton of "An Abundance of Katherines", a book by John Green, is a child prodigy who has only ever dated girls named Katherine. Nineteen of them, in fact, and every single one has dumped him. When his most recent Katherine girlfriend breaks his heart, Colin's best friend Hassan decides to take him on a road trip. The two end up staying in Gunshot, Tennessee with a girl Colin's age named Lindsey and her mother, Hollis. At the beginning of the story, they are just friends. Colin is still in love with Katherine #19, and Lindsey has a boyfriend, whose name also happens to be Colin. Later in the book, Lindsey and Colin learn more about each other and become a lot closer, then at they very end they actually end up dating. Lindsey and Colin's relationship develops a lot throughout the story.

At the beginning of the story, Colin and Lindsey are just friends, and have a lot keeping them apart. For example, Colin, being a child prodigy and a boy who has only dated Katherines, spends all of his time reading and moping about K19 (his most recent heartbreaker).  "The house smelled... like K19's basement... [it] brought him back to a time when she loved him... and his gut ached anew." This is shows that when he first meets Lindsey, he is obviously still in love with K19. Also, since at first in was an accident that he only dated Kathrines, he had unintentionally developed a preference for them and pretty much thought about them all the time. He even was working on a theorem to predict his relationships so he wouldn't get dumped by a Katherine yet again. In his mind he could never love a Lindsey. Another example of what keeps Lindsey and Colin apart is Lindsey's boyfriend, also named Colin (or, as Hassan and Colin Singleton called him "TOC"- The Other Colin). In the beginning of the story, Lindsey is very in love with him. She is always ditching Colin and Hassan to go hang out with him.

Towards the end of the story, Colin and Lindsey's relationship develops a lot more. They begin to trust each other. For instance, Lindsey says she has a "private habit" of biting the inside of her thumb, but she still does it in front of Colin. Another big clue that they are getting closer is Lindsey shows Colin a secret hiding place of hers, and she lets him sit there and talk with her. She hadn't even shown this place to her boyfriend. Also, Colin begins to care about Lindsey more and less about Katherines. Very near to the end of the story, Colin and Hassan catch TOC cheating on Lindsey with her best friend. When he finds them, "For reasons he didn't understand, Colin felt a pulsing rage..." This, I think, is when Colin begins to realize he has a crush on Lindsey. 

At the end of the story, Colin finds Lindsey in her hiding place, and they both realize they like each other. When Colin and Lindsey first met, they kept their distance from each other because they were in love with other people. They slowly become closer and closer until finally they end up dating. This shows that their relationship developed a lot from the start of the book to the end.