will grayson, will grayson

Title: will grayson, will grayson
Authors: John Green, David Levithan
Pub: Dutton Group, Penguin; 2010
Pages: 310
Genre: Young Adult, LGBT

If you have been reading this blog for quite some time you know that I have HUGE author crushes on John Green and David Levithan. Like, I just *know* if I met them, they would see how cool I am and they would let me hang out (stalk) them whenever I wanted. We would drink scotch and smoke cigars and discuss life and love. We would get lattes and peruse the bookstores. We would...okay. Enough already. You get it right?

I LOVE JOHN GREEN AND DAVID LEVITHAN!!!

Which is why this is really hard to say: I was not impressed with will grayson, will grayson. *hits head against wall repeatedly* Why oh why did it not work? It had all of the Green and Levithan quirkiness. I knew which will grayson was which; I LOL'd; I *le sigh*-ed; and I most definitely copied some treasurable quotes in my moleskine.

But. I. Didn't. Love. It.

I think I might have liked it?

This is what I realized: I loved the characters. I just didn't love how they interacted with each other.

Take Will Grayson #1: I totally got that he acted like nothing mattered because he was afraid of getting hurt and how he went about his life and his Jane interest and music and wow throwing in the Schroedinger Cat analogy. Yes. I loved this Will Grayson.

Take Will Grayson #2: What's not to adore and understand about a boy who realizes that he is gay but doesn't want everyone to know because he is not sure that he can handle it and then finding out the one person that he trusted wasn't real and the person who was real betrayed him...oooh and then his first relationship only to realize that maybe it got rushed and yet he still thinks the guy is cool. Yes. I loved this Will Grayson.

Take Tiny Cooper: Ah the ostentatious gay football player who is writing his first musical about his gay life but more importantly love and how it's okay to fall in love and he does with Will Grayson #2 while he watches his best friend Will Grayson #1 run away from his true feelings. Tiny breaks out in song and his in your face and warm and fuzzy and flaming gay. Yes. I loved Tiny Cooper.

Take Side Characters Jane, Maura, Gideon: Perfect side characters. They enable each of the main characters to grow as a person and explore who they are and what they want out of life. They're REAL. I could picture them in my high school world. Jane would have been the cool chick that I would have secretly wanted to be more like because she was just who she was without caring what others thought, Maura was probably more like me, having good intentions but whoa making some awful decisions, and Gideon, oh boy he could have been that boy that I talked to about all of my own insecurities. Yes. I loved Jane. Maura. Gideon.

But the combination together? Fail.

So sad.