Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green, David Levithan Published by Dutton Books on April 6th 2010
Pages: 310
Goodreads
Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world will collide and lives intertwine.
It's not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a push from friends new and old - including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire - Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most awesome high school musical.
1 Nut
*headdesk, headdesk, headdesk*
Alright, real talk. I cannot read books without proper grammar. It. Drives. Me. Nuts. Heck, it bothers me if there are incorrect punctuation and word choice. So imagine my horror reading the David Levithan side Will Grayson where the kid can’t even capitalize the first word in the sentence. I don’t care if it’s for style or the character talks that way, my brain can. Not. Do. It. So WILL GRAYSON WILL GRAYSON met the wall more than once as I threw it across the room in frustration.
Each one of these annoying chapters is followed by a perfectly well edited section from John Green’s Will Grayson. Honestly I couldn’t tell you much about him or his story because I was so distracted by the writing of David’s Will. Green doesn’t do anything wrong, other than maybe the fact that his character is very forgettable and generic, but the fault in this book is not his. His Will is sweet, a perfect opposite to David’s Will. Obviously an intentional comparison. He’s sassy, he’s likable, and I enjoyed reading his chapters as much as I dreaded David’s Will’s.
Despite the fact that David’s sections are basically unreadable for me, his character is infuriating. No, not infuriating, insufferable. He is THE most unpleasant character I have ever had the misfortune to read about. Now, unlikable characters aren’t necessarily a negative but David’s Will is so awful that I didn’t want to read about him. So here’s where the problem is, if your reader doesn’t want to read about your character you’ve already lost.
So we have a problem here. You’ve got one pretty good story intersecting with a very bad one, and your issue becomes that the bad completely overshadows the good. John’s chapters become irrelevant next to the jarring awfulness of David’s. I almost wonder if I reread the book and skipped all of David’s chapters if I would be able to come up with a more coherent review for his side of it. It does a disservice to John’s body of work since the failure in this book is not his.
In light of this I’ll amend my rating:
John’s Will: 3.5 Nuts
David’s Will: .5 Nuts
I would recommend John’s chapters to big John Green fans but if you’re annoyed by offputting grammar issues in published novels I would skip David’s Will.
What did you think of WILL GRAYSON WILL GRAYSON? Share your thoughts in the comments.
From my shelves to yours,
Erin
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