Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Genre: Contemporary

Release Date: 4/6/2010

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About the Book: One Chicago night two teens meet-both named Will Grayson. One gay, one straight, one moody and depressed, one feeling somewhat lost and left out, but both questioning life and love. After their fateful meeting, their lives begin to intertwine and their lives take them places they never expected.

GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I had pretty high hopes for this one-two huge YA authors, a great premise, and possibly the most entertaining musical ever written. I've read John Green's books before, I've never read anything by David Levithan, but I had a good idea their writing styles would blend nicely. And they did. I listened to this one on audio because I'm a big fan of one of the narrators (Nick Podehl) so the writing seemed more seamless to me. In the print copy one Will Grayson is written in capital letters and one is not, but that doesn't come through on audio, so the book felt very cohesive in that format.

David Levithan's Will Grayson starts out pretty moody and I found him obnoxious, he grew on me and I really liked him. I'm actually interested in reading more books written by David Levithan after reading this one. John Green's Will Grayson is typical John Green-nerdy, somewhat awkward and doesn't really know much about girls, but he tries. I almost wonder if John Green can write anything other than nerdy boy characters, yet I don't want him to try because he writes it so well. Together, I thought their Will's worked well and the storyline flowed and I liked how everything came together.

I love and adore Tiny Cooper and if Tiny Dancer was a real musical, I would go see it in a heartbeat. Tiny really is the star of this book and I really felt this was more his story than it was the Will's story. That fact sort of threw me off and made the book not work for me so much. I also really liked both Will's parents. While they started out with me not really liking them, I really appreciated how Will's dad and will's mom have great conversations with their kids. Sure the Will's find their parents annoying, but they also still love them and that shows and I really liked that aspect of the book.

I did think the ending was somewhat abrupt-I wasn't ready for it to end and I thought there would be just a bit more and then the credits started playing on my audiobook. It just seemed too sudden to me.

While, I can't comment on David Levithan's books, I don't really think this is John Green's best book. It's still great and I think Tiny Cooper might be one of the greatest character ever written. But I guess after having such high expectations for it, I was left feeling a little disappointed.

As a side note, I remember reading an article about someone who was offended and shocked by the content in this book. There is a lot of language, which I think always surprises me more on audio than when I read a book, but I wasn't really shocked by that. Maybe I wasn't shocked because I've read John Green's books before. Nothing else really stood out to me though and I would give this one to high schooler's no problem.

Full Disclosure: Reviewed from audiobook from library