Will Grayson is a guy overlooked. Not only is he constantly in the shadow of his larger than life best friend, Tiny Cooper, he's just been kicked out of his circle of friends for defending said best friend's right to be both gay and the football team's star player. will grayson's luck is really no better. Living an hour out of Chicago, will grayson is quasi-goth, closeted and best friend's with a girl who writes pretty terrible poetry. His one saving grace is the online relationship he has with a boy named Isaac, well, it is until the two of them decide to meet.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a novel by YA superstars, John Green and David Levithan and is, well, of the caliber you'd expect from the two of them. It's smart, laugh-out-loud funny, explosive and very poignant. They both do a pretty awesome job of capturing the neurosis, insecurity and isolation that comes from being a teenager in a digital age, and the connections made, lost, and won back are pretty beautifully explored.
David Levithan, who wrote upper-case Will Grayson, for me at least, did a better job of making a typically weak character relatable. Will Grayson is funny and sweet, and the sort of hopeless that reminds me of my own highschool experience. John Green's lower-case will grayson didn't ring quite so right with me. It's not that it's not well-written, or even unrelatable. I'm pretty sure I went to school with a lot of people just like will grayson, and I'm pretty sure they would've annoyed me back then too. He's so melodramatic, and not in the way that the glorious Tiny Cooper is either. Just in a way that reminds me why you're not a teenager forever.
Despite that, the book's pretty great, and an awesomely in-tune story of those sorts of intense, weird connections you only really make as a teenager.
4 out of 5 Tiny Cooper musical interludes.
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