So more than a review this post will really be like a “let’s talk about something else awesome John Green did in a novel” post. Sorry not sorry.
To comply with the template we’ve been following basically since this blog started though I’ll go ahead and provide you with the synopsis from its Goodreads page:
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.
So something I’ll say until the day I die is say what you want about John Green (we’re on Tumblr so we’ve heard and seen it all): that he’s clichéd, that he’s pretentious without having anything of merit behind his writing, whathaveyou. Say whatever you wish but he can write entire novels around these simple ideas that I truly believe are universal to almost every human experience. Here’s an example:
That quote. Who hasn’t experienced that? Not just in high school, where YA is usually set, but forever in life? That fear to go farther because not trying seems better than failure is something I still deal with all the time, whether romantic or not.
He just does that. So well. Like it’s so simple. How does he say it like that? It’s just like I learned in English class: communicate million-dollar ideas with 10-cent words. John Green is a master at that.
The novel is very good. It’s not without it’s flaws (the ending is a little far-fetched) but the characters are all very diverse. This was one of the selections for the book club I’m a part of and one of the criticisms was that some of the characters, especially Tiny Cooper, seemed like caricatures of actual people rather than someone you could relate to. But Justine brought up a great point that teens in high school, especially gay teens, sometimes do feel pressure to be more like caricatures of what they think a gay person should be, rather than who they are. High school is kind of about figuring out who you are, and so not being believable to an adult is sort of the point.
As far as I know, I only have one more John Green novel led to read and that’s Paper Towns. So far my ranking of his book is as follows, from most favorite to least favorite:
The Fault in our Stars (obvi)
An Abundance of Katherines
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Looking for Alaska
What are yours?
