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

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers cross paths. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, culminating in heroic turns-of-heart and the most epic musical ever to grace the high-school stage.

Review: from the moment this book started, it affected me, one moment I was laughing, the next I was crying and all of the time it made me really think! If you described the plot of this to someone who hadn't read it, they would probably think that the main focus of this book is the two characters called Will Grayson and the comedy of the fact that they have the same name and end up meeting. In fact this is not the main focus at all. This book is about growing up and friendship and finding yourself and about the pressures that society puts on young people to conform and to be something that they're not. 

Now whilst this sounds like a deep concept and not something that should have you in stitches, the way John Green and David Levithan have written this book means that you never feel as if you're being preached at or feel like these deep and meaningful things are affecting you but when you put this book down, you really do come away thinking and evaluating. There are some seriously funny moments in the book though, some proper, I am laughing out loud in a public place, kind of hilarious. There were also a couple of tears shed but I was very satisfied with the ending and I really didn't cry too much!

Of course everyone has their favourite characters in this book. Now Tiny Cooper is a major player in this story and he even gets his own musical and spin off book about that musical. I did like him but i had that trouble that I quite often have with teenagers in books in that he was quite self involved and in some part of the story, I just really found him to be completely selfish. i would have to say that my favourite character is Will grayson. Which one though? i think I like the Will Grayson who begins the tale, Tiny's original Friend. He's a little more down to earth that the other characters and I really like the way his character evolves over the novel. The cast of characters in this book though is seriously good and very well developed for a collaborative novel like this!

The writing in this book is really wonderful. the humour is dry and sharp and the narrative just addictive. Despite the fact that I had this book in paperback, I listened to the audio version of this one because I thought it would be interesting to hear it with the two different Will Graysons. It worked really well because I had their different voices in my head for each. There are also a few bit of musical merriment in this novel and so the narrator actually sings in those bits so it was really fun and I would really recommend a) reading this fabulously humorous novel and b) recommend getting the audio version of this book. I think there really is something for everyone here whether you've already grown up or not-seriously good!