The Catalogue of the Universe is an enchanting book that displays many themes that can be related to life. It shows the themes of betrayal, rejection, self-discovery, the struggle of a single parent and most of all love. Despite the title, the book abandons fantasy mode and deals with real issues in the world.
             The novel has a basic plot in which just before her graduation from high school, Angela May acts on her burning desire to find and confront her father, whom her mother describes as having been the love affair of her life but a married man with family, and therefore inaccessible. What Angela discovers is a hard, cold man who never cared for either her mother or herself except in the stories her mother has fabricated to make her feel wanted. What Angela also finds in the course of her search, however, is deepening friendship with a warm, intelligent classmate, Tycho, whose plain looks are just the opposite of her father's elegance. The plot, though lacking some desperate urgency is set early in the novel forming a dramatic climax with a satisfying resolution.
             Determined to satisfy her curiosity about her unknown father, eighteen-year-old Angela May embarks on an emotional journey that shapes and forever alters the way she looks at herself, her unconventional mother, and her devoted friend Tycho. The issue of self-image as opposed to public image is also explored.
             All her life Angela has heard that she was a child of love, but that her father was married and could not leave his other family. Now she's determined to meet him. Her best friend, Tycho Potter, doesn't think it's a good idea. In many ways he's a romantic and mystical person, but watching his sister's marriage fall apart has made him indefinite about Angela's faith in the power of love. Although things are predictably awful when Angela faces her father, out of this experience comes a new romance with Tycho and a better understanding of herself.
             ...