Book Review: "Will Grayson, Will Grayson"

I'm excited to post my first book review on an excellent young adult fiction, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, a collaboration by David Levithan and John Green; I'm pretty sure that as my first book to review here on Moving Metaphor, I have been very spoiled.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson follows the lives of two boys, each named Will Grayson, as they meander their way into an understanding of mature friendships, relationships, loves and heartbreaks. The story is told uniquely, with the point of view and first person narration shifting between the two Wills chapter by chapter. The first Will Grayson we meet is regimented, straight, from an affluent household and lives under the massive shadow (literally) of his ironically named friend, Tiny Cooper. The second Will Grayson we meet struggles with depression, is gay, lives meagerly with his single mom and is infatuated with his online boyfriend, Isaac. The two Wills' lives remain detached for the first few chapters but then collide suddenly in the middle of a Chicago porn shop. I won't say anymore because, really, the entire book is so entertaining both on an emotional and humorous level that each scene should be left untouched.

Overall, I am extremely happy to know that books like this exist. The world that Levithan and Green create is raw: we learn about the sex lives of most all of the major characters in high school and we are presented gay and straight characters who are not perfect, in any way, who struggle with both stereotypical and atypical issues of their times. It is candid: the voice used by both Wills is dripping with profanities, sarcasm and digital abbreviations and we see high school students being, well, high school students flirting with the law and the consequences thereof. But, the story is also larger than life, like the confocal character, Tiny, who decides to turn his entire life into a fabulous musical. The melange of rawness, candor, and hyperbole make the story rich with flavor and variety and in the end you truly feel you have journeyed with the characters and have learned a little more about love (and even "capital L" Love).

I highly recommend this book, if nothing else, for the laughs. Know going in however, that it is on the "edgier" side of young adult fiction so if you enjoy your pristine image of high schoolers running through forests and lying under the sun (with a solid two feet of distance between reproductive organs) then you might want to avoid this one. Or, you could loosen up a bit and have a lot of fun too.