Will Grayson, Will Grayson (Hardcover)
by John Green and David Levithan
Dutton Juvenile, April 2010
310 Pages

This is the story of two characters named Will Grayson (hence the title) that do not know about the other. One Will Grayson is your typical high school student who has this mad crush on a girl and eventually they date. By his side his his best friend Tiny who is 1) not tiny at all and 2) a flaming homosexual. Tiny’s quest throughout the corse of the book is to put on a school musical about himself that he wrote and plans to star in. The other Will Grayson is a moody high school student who is so horribly in the closest that he’s nearly been granted legal residence there. One thing leads to another and both Will Grayson’s happen to wind up in the exact same porn store at the same time. Other Will Grayson starts dating Tiny and as with most gay relationships in high school, drama ensues.

Since the book is written by two author with John Green writing Original Will Grayson, David Levithan writing Other Will Grayson, you can expect it to be slightly untraditional. The chapters alternate between the two Wills. At first it can be slightly jarring but it’s easy to pick up on the changing of tone and voice. The chapters for Other Will are written without the use of caps and read like his internal thought process. It works because the main focus of this story, in my opinion, is Other Will Grayson and his conflict with being gay and his relationship with Tiny. The Original Will Grayson is kind of forgettable. I finished the book a couple of weeks ago but I can not remember much about what his whole plot was. Other Will was much more interesting and complex and you didn’t know how his story was going to end.

Tiny, who would I guess be the REAL main character, plays an important role in the lives of both Will Graysons. His quest to find love and to put on the musical play about his life is the thing that ties all the story lines together.

All in all I thought the book was enjoyable but not nearly a memorable as John Green’s previous work. His version of Will Grayson is forgettable and nearly indistinguishable from John Green’s other male leads in his previous books. I can’t speak about David Levithan’s books and how this compares because I am unfamiliar with his works. Interestingly enough Will Grayson, Will Grayson does not inspire me to check out his previous work.

It may sound like I didn’t like Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but I think my main problem with it was that there was nothing to make it stand out. It’s a story about the high school drama of two very different Will Graysons. Read it if you want, but this book doesn’t stand out in the piles of YA fiction. The only drawing power of this book comes from the two well established authors.

Second opinions:
Firefly’s Book Blog
Reading Local: Portland
Bookfoolery and Babble
books i done read
Zen Leaf
Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of

Here’s John Green reading the beginning of the book!