Plot
Will Grayson is a high school teen from Chicago. His best friend is ‘Tiny’ Cooper. Both are not alike at all but have been close
for years.
Will Grayson is a high school teen who lives a few miles
away. He lives with his single mother
and suffers from depression.
(From now on I’m going to refer to the first Will as
‘uppercase Will’ and the second Will as ‘lowercase Will’ as that is how their chapters
are written in the novel in order to differentiate between the two!)
One night, uppercase Will, Tiny and uppercase Will’s love
interest Jane decide to go to a gig. On
the same night lowercase Will has planned to meet his online love interest, Isaac,
in Chicago. And this is the night that
the two Will Grayson meet and from here on in, the lives of the two Will
Graysons change.
Good points
On many an occasion, the relationships between the
characters were adorable. Jane and uppercase
Will’s relationship is realistic and has some quite sweet moments. But, most of all, I loved uppercase Will and
Tiny’s relationship. The two of them are
not afraid to show each other affection and they both have beautiful commitment
to their friendship.
It was quite evident which author wrote which Will and this
was quite fun. Although I haven’t read
any David Levithan, I’ve read Looking For Alaska and John Green’s style was
evident in his Will – a geeky boy with one best friend and an interest in an
unavailable girl.
Bad points
However, it hurts me to this say this but the story was very
weak and, especially, because I loved Looking For Alaska I was so surprised
with my discontent with the plot. My
discontent was, in short, due to the lack of a plot. The blurb was completely misleading. The two Wills only meet about 100 pages in
(which I thought was a bit rubbish considering that the book is just over 300
pages long!) And after that, their
interaction is limited to about 3 pages of IMing, 1 phone conversation and a
little waving from opposite sides of a room. Indeed, their lives do change after they meet,
but the meeting itself is not really a life-changing experience. The entire plot lacked direction, content and,
well, a general point.
Another issue was the authors’ attitude towards the
characters’ sexuality. Lowercase Will is
gay and this is made evident with his conversations with Isaac at the beginning
of the story. Tiny is also gay but I
thought that the way that the audience is provided with this information is
appalling. The authors make a huge deal
about it at the beginning - and also who else is gay or straight - which I
thought was totally unnecessary. Surely,
the idea about promoting gay rights is making it clear that, in fact, it is NOT
A BIG DEAL.
Summary
Quite a sweet novel, in places, with quite interesting
characters. However, I was very
dissatisfied with the plot since, all in all, not a lot happens (and not in a
good way!)
Rating = 3 stars
Additional points
My only reason for giving this 3 stars is because it’s John
Green. And because I loved LFA I decided
not to be too harsh. Plus, I’m currently
reading Paper Towns and enjoying it so I’m just going to overlook this little
literary blip! However, my first
experience of David Levithan’s writing wasn’t great... but I expect I’ll be
giving him a second chance at some point. Any Levithan recommendations?
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