Will Grayson, Will Grayson in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Nov 07, 2010 jess rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, audiobook-d, yaf

This is the story of Will Grayson and Will Grayson, two high school boys who live in different cities and have nothing in common really, except a name. And what do you have in common with someone who shares your name? Virtually nothing, unless your name is Orange Jello, then maybe you can swap stories.

So Will & Will run into each other through a fateful series of events at a porn store in Chicago. They are both totally awkward about being at a porn store, underage and not really engaged in the This is the story of Will Grayson and Will Grayson, two high school boys who live in different cities and have nothing in common really, except a name. And what do you have in common with someone who shares your name? Virtually nothing, unless your name is Orange Jello, then maybe you can swap stories.

So Will & Will run into each other through a fateful series of events at a porn store in Chicago. They are both totally awkward about being at a porn store, underage and not really engaged in the inventory. Neither of them really know what to make of their strange coincidental shared name, but it feels significant. One Will Grayson is a little lower class, son of a single divorced mom, lonely, depressed, and gay. The other Will Grayson comes from considerable privilege. He lives in Evanston, IL. He's straight, but he has a gay best friend: enormous, fabulous tight-end football player and serial romantic, Tiny Cooper. Once the two Will Graysons meet, there is a sort of domino effect that serves to zip-tie their lives together. It's kind of magical, but also kind of ordinary and the authors never really ask you to suspend belief as much as they expect you to extend your belief in the possibilities of improbable things. It's not magical realism, that's all I'm trying to say.

One of my local librarians reviewed this on goodreads and it sounded great, so I picked up the audiobook. I've been working through it for the past week or so. I really enjoyed this book & I'm sad it has ended, but everything felt so right at the end. I am sated. I am not clamoring for the sequel (although, if there were one, I would read it.) I have not read a lot of YAF, or fiction in general, with multidimensional and realistic gay teens that reflected real life gay teens. This book is different in that regard. Many of the characters are navigating others' shallow misperceptions of them, and struggling to be perceived as three dimensional personalities, but no one is experiencing it as loudly and vivaciously as the flamboyant gay best friend. This book, however, has so many gay teens and straight teens and a few moments of ambiguous sexuality, and there are enough personalities and experiences that the portrayal of gay teens is not condescending, tokenizing, or shallow. A++

The story is told with alternating chapters from the POV of each W.G. It was a little disorienting for the first few flip/flops, but the audiobook has two different actors reading the parts, and it was easy to keep up with which W.G. was which, and ultimately the alternating perspectives are a crucial element. I loved reading this book. The subject matter was sensitive and handled well. The storytelling was engaging and entertaining. This is not a politicized diatribe or an emotional powerhouse. It's just a good book.

Tiny Cooper writes a musical ("Hold Me Closer," formerly known as "Tiny Dancer"). It's kind of amazing. If you have ever been a teenager or known a teenager absorbed in a grand, gigantic creative endeavor, well, it's just kind of amazing. There is something beautiful about grandiose efforts from teens. Parents are practically non-characters in this book, which is interesting because like, borrowing a car and coming out as gay and needing antidepressants are all teenagery things that would involve time with your parents. One of the W.G.'s has a single mom who is the most interesting adult character in the book, but she doesn't take up a lot of space. It's alright that the adults move around the periphery, but it's a little weird.

There are plenty of indie rock references, facebook requests, instant messages, texts, tortured emotional lovelorn monologues and dialogs, and the sort of secret sneakiness and uncertainty that make adolescence so poignant. Unrequited crushes, break-ups and heartbreak are a constant refrain, and if I remember being a teenager (I do!), that's accurate. Everyone is emotionally stunted (also accurate). These characters really struggled with the most difficult sort of adolescent relationships - close friendships - and those moments were especially earnest and real. They brought up a lot of sentimental feelings for me. Sniff. ...more

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Jan 22, 2017 Jen Ifer's Inklings rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, popsugar-2017-reading-challenge, read-in-2017

This is actually a 2.5 star book for me. When I first started it, I didn't like it at all. I am just not a fan of John Green's writing style. I also didn't like the constant confusion in the beginning of the book. It felt like an unreliable narrator to me and I really hate those. But, about 70% into the book, it all got much better. I didn't hate it anymore. But I still didn't like it. It was just okay at that point. ...more

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