That smile could end wars and cure cancer.

I expressed in the previous blog post that I was quite a fan of John Green's Looking for Alaska; my reading circle in the adolescent in American literature did as well, so we decided to split his other two books, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns, between ourselves. As you may have guessed, the title of the former intrigued me, and I read it.

Katherines is about a recent high school graduate, Colin, and the over-abundance of Katherines in his life. His girlfriend (Katherine XIX, as he affectionately refers to her) breaks up with him, and Colin falls apart. His best friend sprints to the rescue with the idea of a roadtrip to nowhere lasting forever, and the two embark on this journey to rid Colin of his curse--the dumpee of all Katherines.

The writing here differs significantly from that of Green's first book. Katherines is in third person, which makes connecting to the main character (who is a little distant in the first place) more difficult. After a bit of consideration, I think that Green may have done this on purpose. Though I have no evidence other than my own personal knowledge and opinion of the following claim, I think it's an interesting one; perhaps Colin has (very mild) autisim. He has a lot of classic signs I've observed in classes before--he's obsessive (the Katherines, anagrams), he was reading at a young age, he tries to make love into an equation, his best friend has to teach him social cues--and Green's third-person narrative exascerbates the distance between the reader and the protagonist. I think there are a lot of interesting, intelligent ideas presented in this novel, but the way they are presented lacks something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this book is not nearly as engaging as Alaska.

Because Colin is so interested in math and anagrams, the book does contain some interesting content in subjects other than English, but as a future English teacher, I don't think I would teach this book to the general classroom. I would certainly suggest it to any student whom I thought would be interested; though there is a little bit of language and a few awkwardly inappropriate comments (particularly surrounding religion), there is no material objectionable enough to question its audience.

Tonight in the lot between A and B--party at Life Cafe to follow!

You know, I love RENT, and I don't think that I'll ever stop loving RENT.

BUT I'm proud of myself. Today, I stepped outside of my musical theatre box for the first time in at least a year.

I must admit--I'm not listening to anything super classy. It's some random electronic music, but I really enjoy it. It makes me smile and dance a little bit, and I really like that.

It all started with this band called "Owl City."

Healy was showing me this random music playlist made by youtube's livelavalive and his friend Kyle. The songs were good and everything, but then this one stuck out to me. I looked on the songlist to find it was Owl City. I've never heard of them prior to this, and, frankly, I'm shocked. I love owls, I love music--how'd I miss two of my favourite things squished into one?!

Once again, it's not like they're the best things I've ever heard; Rent still owns anyone as far as talent is concerned. Still, I'm enjoying my new Owl City pandora station, and it's pretty lightweight.

Thus far it's played:

1. "West Coast Friendship" by Owl City
2. "Even Fairy Tale Characters Would Be Jealous" by Playradioplay!
3. "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for a Cutie
4. "Brand New Colony" by Postal Service

and I'm very happy with that.

UPDATE: Owl City is a Christian band. I'm avoiding all of the Jesus songs (not that I have anything against Jesus--he's a nice guy. I just don't like the awkward insertion of Jesus into popular music).