Will Grayson, Will Grayson

by David Levithan, John Green, Green

Book Overview

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, teenager Will Grayson crosses paths with...Will Grayson! Two teens with the same name who run in two very different circles suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions. Culminating in epic turns-of-heart on both of their parts, they team up to produce the most fabulous musical ever to grace the high school stage. Told in alternating voices from two of the most popular names...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142418471
• ISBN13: 9780142418475
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

A new favorite

Just an amazing book with an amazing sense of humor. One of my favorites for sure! And has a happy ending, which is always important for me.

Stunning.

It was really a wonderful book. I had been wanting to read it for YEARS and just caved. So, I won't say much about the story (Just read it) and I promise youll love it. Also, mine came signed. Ex library copy.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

I don't know if I can properly express my love for this book. I'm a proud nerdfighter, so I've been looking forward to the day when John Green's new book would be coming out ever since I first heard about its existence. Upon reading it, I was kind of shocked. Sure, John Green's Will Grayson was a really great character...but David Levithan's will grayson, David Levithan, whose only other work I've read was a short story in Geektastic, made me want to jump into the book and give him a massive shower of hugs. And while John Green is responsible for the creation of Tiny Cooper, it's David Levithan's Tiny that really goes places. So anyways, one of the best things about these two authors is their authenticity. It's like they've grown up without having lost their teenage selves, and are fully able to capture those teenage emotions and write them into an emotionally moving story. Give me another moment to fangirl over will grayson. I know many people have expressed an intense dislike of David's will's inability to use the shift key. But here's the thing: when depression strikes, it honestly feels like your universal shift key is missing, like nothing you can say deserves capitalization, or in a weird way, recognition and ownership. Your proper nouns are not important enough to be capitalized. So I found myself really relating to that lack of capitalization. Simply speaking, David Levithan broke my heart with will grayson, especially after bringing Tiny Cooper into will's story. John's contribution to the story was okay, but I felt like it was the same John Green formula we've all seen already. Typical teenage guy, with his larger-than-life sidekick that takes him on a wild journey through the big wide wonderful world. The Love Interest, Jane, bored the heck out of me, and overall, though the writing was predictably spectacular, I was just disinterested in Will Grayson and his story. I did not want this book to end. I felt like it incorporated every possible teenage high school problem that teens, real teens, have at some point had to deal with. I don't think it's possible to finish this book without wanting your own personal Tiny Cooper. Anyone else desperately wishing for a soundtrack to this, with big, cheesy, over-the-top musical numbers? Youtube musical theater nerdfighters, get on that! Rating: 5/5

I laughed, I cried, I'm making it required reading...

When I first started reading this book, I have to agree with Pat Shand's review that Levithan's (whom I adore) Will Grayson started out a little flat. Tiny Cooper kept me in the story. Then, the interaction between WG-1 and WG-2 began and I was in - hook, line, sinker. Let me say - without screams from any National Coalition to Save My Child - I read out loud to my 8 year old as she is falling asleep each night. Just from the few pages she heard here and there, she wanted to know what happened to Tiny Cooper. Part of the reason, I'm sure, is because he is such a presence in the book. For me, it was how Green & Levithan floated Tiny (if that is possible) from WG-1 to WG-2. Amazing because you truly get to discover Tiny from two perspectives. Having recently read Linger (the follow-up to Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver), I am fascinated by stories told through multiple voices. I am even more impressed when two authors write the multiple voices and develop someone as thoroughly as Tiny. Bravo boys. I am lucky enough to teach YA lit at the university level and look for a couple of new books each year to use as required reading (every other book in the class is choice). With Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I am so emotionally attached to these characters I am timid about choosing this book... I don't want anyone to read it and tell me they didn't like it! However, with two fabulous authors and their equally fabulous Will Graysons, I'm willing to take that chance.

The 4th Cornerstone of Young Adult Literature

I've never solved a John Green website riddle, but I'm fan enough to call myself a Nerdfighter and confident enough in my masculinity to read David Levithan in broad daylight. I'm 1,231 of the 30 million viewers of John and Hank's Brotherhood 2.0, I've blogged pictures of myself "putting stuff on my head," and I've enjoyed and even studied Green's first three novels, so it is with esteemed privilege that I review their latest collaborative effort, WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON. Will Grayson's friends may say he's incapable of emotion, but it's not true. He's just obeying his two life rules: 1. Don't care too much, and 2. Shut up. You can't get hurt if you don't really care, and so far, life in the shadow of a ginormous, six-six offensive lineman best friend has kept him safe enough. Will's best friend, Tiny Cooper, "is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large." Football player, loyal fan of lesser-known-but-awesomer-than-thou bands, producer of musicals, and matchmaker extraordinaire, Tiny is fabulous. The other Will Grayson (o.w.g.) wants the world to die in a flaming bus crash. He's not Facebook friends with suicide yet, but they've met in chat rooms and IM'd a couple of times. If you ask him, he won't tell you, but he's found "the one" and can't wait for the day they finally meet. Without Isaac--screenname: boundbydad--o.w.g. wouldn't have any reason to survive each school day, or slave away at the music store, or put up with his mother and absentee father, or et cetera. So when . . . . . . Tiny helps Will buy a fake ID and Will's new crush-not-crush Jane joins them at the best underground concert ever, Will learns his ID's no good and has to spend the evening wishing. Wishing he'd double-checked his ID. Wishing he was inside with Jane. And wishing the planet of his life didn't revolve around the flaming star called Tiny. . . . while on the same night . . . . . .o.w.g. secretly takes a train across the city to meet Isaac. Hoping to actually meet him. Hoping this boy is the answer his life's been dying for. Hoping to hold hands and be together for the first time. Hoping to be normal, in person "because Isaac has become the one the songs are about." . . .Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. Their chance meeting and conversation shows them that there's nothing wrong with being in love--that what sucks about love is that it's so tied to truth--and that if you keep focusing on why you have it so bad, you'll never realize how you could have it so good. Nothing (aside from aliens abducting my eyes for intergalactic experiments) was going to keep me from reading WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON. John Green (author of Printz-award-winning Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns) and David Levithan (co-author of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) have delivered the fourth cornerstone of young adul

Once more, with feeling!

Will Grayson has been Tiny Cooper's best friend since elementary school. Tiny is, according to Will, "the world's largest person who is really, really gay" and constantly falling in and out of love--and dragging Will with him everywhere. When his latest attempt to hook Will up with a girl fails, Will meets Will Grayson, another teen who is depressed and discouraged. Both Wills make an effort not to feel too much in life, but are changed after meeting, and continue to change as Tiny puts on his extravagant and fabulous autobiographical musical, "Tiny Dancer", culminating in an unforgettable and powerful night. John Green and David Levithan have created a very unique, surprising, and downright hilarious novel. The book is told in alternating chapters, and it's very easy to distinguish which point of view each author is writing from. Their characters are so different, but at the same time the book is very cohesive and engaging. Green's Will is a lot like some of his previous characters: funny, self-deprecating, and a bit nerdy and self conscious, but he is a terrific friend and an honest person. Levithan's Will is a bit darker. He is lonely and depressed, and it's evident throughout most of the book that he is hurting and doesn't know how to be himself, or even be happy. Each Will possesses his own authentic voice, and the chapters flow seamless together, playing off each other well with Tiny as a good (albeit a little self-centered) central character. The plot is complex, and the change in each Will may be gradual as each one sorts out their own myriad of problems and issues, but the journey is funny, rough, and best of all, smart (for example, Schrondinger's cat is used as an extended metaphor throughout much of the book). Will Grayson, Will Grayson is brilliant and intelligent read about love, appreciation, and feeling with an unflinching and bold style that many teens will appreciate. Cover Comments: I really like this cover! It is very fitting that since there is a musical in the book there is a spotlight on the cover, and the perspective is different. The font is also pretty cool--I like how some of the letters of the title run into each other. This is just a really excellent cover!

WhatMissKelleyIsReading: bookitty.typepad.com

Will Grayson (the straight one), has two simple rules: Don't care too much and shut up. His best friend Tiny Cooper ("he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large.") breaks these rules constantly. He seems to fall in love hourly, and he never stops talking. Will, who appears to just go through the motions of his life, follows reluctantly in Tiny's wake, and finds his social world expanding when he agrees to become the only straight guy in the school's Gay Straight Alliance. will grayson (the gay one), is isolated from everyone. He hates his friends and is emotionally shut off from everyone except his Internet boyfriend, Isaac. When will grayson heads to Chicago to meet Isaac on the same night that Will Grayson and Tiny Cooper are there for a music show, their lives and friendships change in unpredictable ways. The first thing about this book is that it is laugh out loud funny. Not lol funny, which will grayson would hate, but laugh so loud the neighbors probably hear you funny. Initially the wit is restricted to the Will Grayson chapters, but as the novel continues, even will grayson experiences a little humor. I could quote endlessly from this book since there are so many sections that are hilarious. Another thing to know is that the novel alternates between Will Grayson and will grayson. Will Grayson's chapters are more conventional, both in style and in structure, while will grayson uses no capitals and is very closed off. These chapters are will's stream of consciousness interspersed with excerpts from chats with Issac. Initially these chapters are harder to get through and understand, but as the novel progresses and will opens up they become easier to read. Will Grayson, Will Grayson falls under the genre contemporary realistic fiction, and yet there is just a touch of magic to it. The characters in this book aren't perfect; they fail each other, and they fail themselves, but ultimately they get back up and try again. Male friendship gets the attention in this novel that I haven't seen anywhere else, and both Will and will interact with their parents in ways that are realistic and moving. There are no villains here, just as there aren't many villains in real life. There are simply people who do the wrong thing, who get scared and make mistakes, who let their friends down and then try to pick them back up. I loved this book. It's as good as anything that I've read this year, and I'm probably going to force everyone I know to read it. This is definitely a book for the keeper shelf.