Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green, David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green, David Levithan

Genres: Young adult, contemporary, romance, glbt, realistic fiction

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.

Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and David Levithan’s collaborative novel is brimming with a double helping of the heart and humor that have won both of them legions of faithful fans.

John Green and David Levithan did a good job on this collaboration. What I liked best about it is just how much it captures the reality of teenage drama. Really, this book is all about Tiny, and the two Will Graysons in his life. Tiny is an amazing character, he's hilarious and confident, with all these insecurities that he tries to hide.

Another character that I ended up liking a lot if Jane. She's the type that just grows on you, alongside Will Grayson (the straight one).

Green writes in his typical manner, with wit and sensitivity. In contrast to Levithan, I found that Green's chapters had a more upbeat feel to them, which can possibly be attributed to the fact that Levithan's Will Grayson was suffering from depression. Levithan's writing was... unique. No words were capitalized and dialogues were done in chat/script form. It took a while to get used to but once you did, you kind of see that it's probably the way his Will Grayson really would have done it anyway.

Truth be told, the ending appeared a bit lacking to me. I enjoyed how they tackled the depth of Tiny and straight Will's friendship, but the ending seemed to lacking and, sorry to say, corny. It was done in a flashy way that I guess Tiny appreciates because it's Tiny, but from the reader's perspective, there could have been more to it.

Rating: 3.5/5

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros #2

When I was little, my dad used to tell me, "Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick you friend's nose." This seemed like a reasonably astute observation to me when I was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels. To begin with, you cannot possibly pick your friends, or else I never would have ended up with Tiny Cooper.

Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large.

Truth be told, the first two paragraphs were catchy and witty, and so typically John Green. I've skimmed over the chapters and it turns out that Green writes odd numbered chapters while Levithan writes even numbered chapters. Also, Levithan doesn't use capitalization. It hurts the eyes.

Stacking The Shelves #3

I bought two YA books from Fully Booked this week. First, I bought Will Grayson, Will Grayson last Thursday and swore that was all I was getting this week. Then I was out yesterday and passed by Fully Booked and... bought Paper Towns. Because it was on sale. So much for that idea.

Review: Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle

Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle 

Genres: Young adult, romance, short stories, holiday 

Summary: An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve  buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train and sets off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives. Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils), and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista.

Aside from the famous John Green, I have never (unfortunately) heard of Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle before. But I didn't buy this book because of John Green's name, I bought it because it's the holiday seasons and I wanted to read a holiday feel-good book. At least I assumed it was a feel-good book. Also, I was correct.

Let It Snow is a collection of holiday short stories. Each one are interconnected to the other and cameos show up in each story. It's not a new idea as it has been done so many times before, but it was also interesting to see the main characters of one story from the point of view of another.

The first story, written by Maureen Johnson, was my favorite. The lady is hilarious, and I am definitely going to look into her other books. The characters that she wrote were refreshing and it made me root for them. The second story was written by John Green, and was written in his familiar fashion of long monologues by characters who all seem to be too quick-witted. It's funny, but not very believable. It was a mixture of romance and friendship and while the characters were hard to believe, it was still fun to read about them. The last story, written by Lauren Myracle, was also amusing to read but the underdog in all three stories. It was fast-paced and focused more on self-realization than anything else.

All in all, I liked this book. There's no profound plot in here, but the way they executed everything was done in such a nice and humorous way that it's definitely a good read.

Rating: 4/5