Friday 14 August 2015

Cova Reviews | Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan




Will Grayson, Will Grayson tells the story of two guys who have the same name - there are two guys called Will Grayson living nearby. They do not know each other, and their lives are pretty different: one of them has a stable family, with two surgeon parents and a gay best friend; the other Will Grayson lives with his mum, needs pills for his mental health issues, does not want any friends and has a big secret. Eventually their lives intertwine in the most unexpected circumstances. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a book about love, friendship and finding one's sexuality.

As you have probably already noticed, it is written by two different authors, who have tremendously different writing styles. They write alternate chapters, each of which is about a different Will Grayson. This means that each author writes only about one of the Graysons, following the order Green, Levithan, Green, Levithan... This makes the book and the characters so much richer, because the writing of the authors is as different as the two main characters, shown through the 1st person narration. 


It really caught my attention that David Levithan chose not to use capital letters at all and used a theatrical type of dialog throughout his chapters, which I think gives his Will Grayson an "I don't really care about stupid school stuff" type of personality.  Green, on the other hand, writes more conventionally, just as in any other of his books. I personally am not a huge fan of John Green's novels or writing - I read The fault in our stars and Looking for Alaska just to try and figure out this whole John Green movement, and I could not really... But anyway, in Will Grayson, Will Grayson his writing is no different from what he has us used to: easy to follow, with nothing extraordinary to mention.

Although I thought it was just okay at the beginning, about half-way through the book things started getting more interesting and I started enjoying it more. I especially liked the way David Levithan talks about a topic as important as homosexuality nowadays, and finally, it's his Will Grayson I liked the most.


In any case, this novel did not really impress me, but I did not dislike it either, so after having given it much thought, I gave it a 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads





I think it's a good reading if you're looking for a novel about finding one's sexuality and accepting yourself.


Happy reading!





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