Mr. John Green won the Printz award for Looking for Alaska (that means it was the best young adult book of the year) and I like his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, even more. It's got romance, a giant warty pig type of thing, the mathematical formula for predicting the outcome of a love relationship, child prodigies, anagrams, and the funniest sidekick since Vince Vaughn in Swingers.

John now adds to his various accolades by becoming the author of our FIRST STRAIGHT MAN girlfriend list, here at The Boyfriend List. Yes, it's true! We have had lists by men. We have had girlfriend lists. But this is the first straight man girlfriend list -- and it's LONG.

Because John has been dumped I think 53 times. Something in the 50s. This is not a secret. However, it is a bit of a mystery as he is officially a hot man of children's literature. (Fuse #8 has an ongoing series on the subject; scroll down and look in the right-hand column).

Anyway, I am very serious in saying this. Katherines is my favorite book of the fall season and you should read it.

John Green's girlfriend list
(which contains last names because he is utterly fearless about his ex-girlfriends googling themselves! a braver soul than I)

A brief explanation from John: My new book, An Abundance of Katherines, is about a boy, Colin Singleton, who has dated 19 girls, all of whom dumped him and all of whom were named Katherine. Some people may say, "Well, what entitles you to write such a book? Why do you presume to be such an expert in the field of getting dumped?" And so, to prove to you that An Abundance of Katherines is born of an Abundance of Experience, here are 19 sentences about 19 girls who dumped me.

1. Jennifer Keene was the cutest girl in third grade, and as such was really out of my league, which she realized after four days.

2. After it ended with my fourth-grade girlfriend Julie Baskin, I wrote in my journal, "my life is a waste" (seriously).

3. Tiffany-whose-last-name-I-can't-remember told everyone at camp I kissed like I was eating a sloppy joe, and then broke up with me during pottery class.

4. Davonne Raizor, the cutest Cure fan in all of ninth grade, eventually revealed, "I keep trying to be attracted to you, but it isn't working."

5. Barbara wanted someone harder core.

6. Holly Brown liked Stuart more.

7. Fran realized she didn't like boys.

8. Jen Spears realized she still liked Gilbert.

9. By way of parting, Jeanette said, "You don't need a girlfriend; you need a robot who says nothing but I-love-you," and in doing so, made her way into "An Abundance of Katherines."

10. After several hours-long conversations about our relationship told me, Jenny told me, "I would prefer to HAVE a relationship rather than just discuss one," which proved impossible.

11. After two years, Major College Girlfriend and First Real Love Marie Ponzillo was like, "If we're not gonna get married, we should probably break up, and we are SO not getting married."

12. Jill dumped me because I couldn't get over Marie.

13. Annika dumped me because I couldn't get over Jill.

14. Then came the smothering trilogy: Jessi Johnston felt really smothered.

15. Carrie Sanders felt really smothered.

16. Lesley Martin felt really smothered.

17. After my junior year of college, Mary-whose-last-name-I-can-remember-but-she-is-a-lawyer-and-has-threatened-to-sue-me drove with me to Alaska, where we were spending the summer in a town of 18 people, and in pretty short order, Mary dumped me for one of the other 18 people.

18. Emily Chambers was my Alamo: there were no survivors.

19. Sarah Urist dumped me after two dates, because I was awkward and couldn't talk to her (but then we stayed friends and I got slightly less awkward and then four years later we got married).

P.S. Come see me and John at the Southern Festival of Books! if you are in Memphis. It's this weekend. The other thing John and I have in common is that he has reviewed many books about conjoined twins (see his bio) and so have I! Just a factoid for ya. True, I swear. /E