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A review by thelizabeth
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan, John Green
4.0
Birthday present to myself!
4.5 stars, really often. This is the first YA book in a long time that felt weirdly relevant to me. I've been in lots of these places, pretty much yesterday. Interesting how that works.
I've never read a David Levithan book before, so I thought it was funny how immediately in the opening chapter we are name-checking Neutral Milk Hotel songs. Well, that was easy! Now I clearly know a David Levithan book from the herd! But eventually, I was much more impressed than that. I'm not totally sure about the who authored whom thing, so I guess I'll just credit them both with the good work, because that's probably true.
Anyway, it turned out that nearly every single page I dog-eared was uppercase Will Grayson's. In a short book there were like six of them. He said the most good things here. He's put in such a realistic place. The good but less than great life, beneath notice, wondering what you're supposed to do to become amazing, what you would be able to be doing if you were a different kind of person. Feeling you're permanently stuck one way and you've made too many mistakes and missed your chance, even though you're so young that's crazy. Nervous about wanting something very badly.
It's also good work to have made this book about gay characters plus many things. The coming out was so calm. And everyone has a lot of things to think about instead of just that one.
I do have a couple complaints which kept this from total awesomeness for me. The ending is just ok. And I was disappointed early on when the story with the internet boyfriend turned out just to be the catalyst to get the WG paths to criss-cross, instead of a real and rich thing. Lowercase Will Grayson, so deeply upset in his life and also having this one incongruous amazing love thing going on, it's a really good premise, and 100% real. And, I thought John Green was about to score an incredible home run with a meaningful and realistic depiction of what it's like to meet an internet friend. Because there is probably no one better qualified to do so. I hope he does write that someday.
Also I'm sure you will be really mad at me, but I didn't like Tiny's musical that much.
But it was a really good book, and I'm glad I've got it. Because I might need it again later.
4.5 stars, really often. This is the first YA book in a long time that felt weirdly relevant to me. I've been in lots of these places, pretty much yesterday. Interesting how that works.
I've never read a David Levithan book before, so I thought it was funny how immediately in the opening chapter we are name-checking Neutral Milk Hotel songs. Well, that was easy! Now I clearly know a David Levithan book from the herd! But eventually, I was much more impressed than that. I'm not totally sure about the who authored whom thing, so I guess I'll just credit them both with the good work, because that's probably true.
Anyway, it turned out that nearly every single page I dog-eared was uppercase Will Grayson's. In a short book there were like six of them. He said the most good things here. He's put in such a realistic place. The good but less than great life, beneath notice, wondering what you're supposed to do to become amazing, what you would be able to be doing if you were a different kind of person. Feeling you're permanently stuck one way and you've made too many mistakes and missed your chance, even though you're so young that's crazy. Nervous about wanting something very badly.
It's also good work to have made this book about gay characters plus many things. The coming out was so calm. And everyone has a lot of things to think about instead of just that one.
I do have a couple complaints which kept this from total awesomeness for me. The ending is just ok. And I was disappointed early on when the story with the internet boyfriend turned out just to be the catalyst to get the WG paths to criss-cross, instead of a real and rich thing. Lowercase Will Grayson, so deeply upset in his life and also having this one incongruous amazing love thing going on, it's a really good premise, and 100% real. And, I thought John Green was about to score an incredible home run with a meaningful and realistic depiction of what it's like to meet an internet friend. Because there is probably no one better qualified to do so. I hope he does write that someday.
Also I'm sure you will be really mad at me, but I didn't like Tiny's musical that much.
But it was a really good book, and I'm glad I've got it. Because I might need it again later.