I’m not going to lie, I decided I wanted to read this book because I’d read TFIOS and it was such an amazing book that I wanted to see if John Green was just a superb writer.

On the basis of this book, I’d have to disagree. I’d read some comments on goodreads which said that the constant use of the words fug, fugger and fugging to replace a similar sounding swear word were annoying, but I didn’t think that would bother me too much, I don’t usually mind that sort of thing. But I was wrong. By the end of the book, I found it highly infuriating, I’d rather the characters just actually swore.

But this was just one of the many things that got on my nerves with this book. The main character Colin was supposed to be a child prodigy turned not-quite genius, but I just found him whiny, self absorbed and slightly irritating. I think his uniqueness is supposed to endear us to him, but I just found myself completely unable to relate to him and wishing he’d just shut up.

As for the story, it was quite a nice idea, an intriguing concept of a guy who has dated 19 girls named Katherine. But as I realised I was coming to the end of the book, I got the feeling that not much had happened. I understand that the book was about a journey of self discovery and blah blah blah, but I was underwhelmed after such an emotional rollercoaster reading TFIOS.

I don’t think I’ll fully discount John Green just yet as I’ve heard some of his other books are great, but I wouldn’t really recommend this one.