Book-
WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON
Authors-
JOHN GREEN & DAVID LEUITHAN
Pages-308
BLURB-
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.
MY TAKE ON THE BOOK-
To begin with the title, the title depicts a name and they are basically two names of two different person but ironically the name of both the individuals that the authors described in the novel is the same.
The story goes along the narratives of Will Grayson
who is straight, the other Will Grayson, who is depressed and Tiny Cooper (the
world’s largest person who is really, really gay). Tiny is putting up a musical
‘Tiny Dancer’ for which he is very much energetic and optimistic about.
After reading the first few chapters I was so much confused
thinking what was actually going on in this book. Because as you go on you will
get to know there are two Will Grayson. And it’s difficult to keep a tract of
who is who.
It starts
with them not knowing each other until their paths inevitably converge the
night the first Will Grayson went to meet Isaac, his online friend but ended up
meeting the Other Will Grayson(o.w.g) and Tiny Cooper.
You
can differentiate the two Will Grayson in this way. For one of them, the
letters are small without any capitalization like-
me: i’m glad that you exist
tiny:
i’m glad to be existing with right now.
me: you have no idea how wrong you are
about me.
tiny: you have no idea how wrong you
are about yourself.
me: stop that.
tiny: only if you stop it.
me: i’m warning you.
While
in the other Will Grayson, the words are capitalized, like this-
‘Five hundred channels and nothing’s
on’
‘You get the day off?’ I ask.
‘I can always get someone to cover’ he
says. ‘Always’
‘I’m okay,’ I say.
‘I know you are. I just wanted to be
home with you, that’s all.’
I blink out some tears, but Dad has the
decency not to say anything about it.
This
is one way of differentiating Will Grayson from the other Will Grayson.
This generation knows the perks and curse of the
internet unknown and fake social media which in the novel is pointed out. O.W.G(Other
Will Grayson) is also shown how he ends up heartbroken knowing that his
internet friend, Isaac was actually Maura. While the first Will Grayson’s love
life is set up by his friend Tiny to Jane Turner.
Will Grayson after knowing that Maura was Isaac,
stopped talking and paying any attention to her. although she came and begged
and apologized to him, he didn’t pay any heed. But at the near ending of the
novel, Will goes up to Maura and says that ‘look. i just want you to know that
while i still think what you did was completely shitty to you, too. not in the
elaborately shitty way that you were to me, but still pretty shitty. i should
have just been honest with you and told you i didn’t want to talk to you or be
your boyfriend or be your best friend or anything like that. i tried—i swear i
tried. but you didn’t want to hear what i was saying, and i used that as an
excuse to let it go on.’ ‘It wasn’t you I liked. It was Isaac’.
In this book, the authors used the trial and error
thing so nicely that it really makes sense. In a part where the two Will
Grayson were talking to each other, one of them says that ‘In my recent experience, I’d say hurt tends to drown out sorry.’ To
which the other Will says that ‘I guess
there’s a reason they don’t call it ’trial and success’.It’s just try-and-error’.
But then, somehow this trial and error is
pessimistic and maybe that’s what it is most of the time. And that’s how you
find ‘it’. Like
try-error-try-error-it or may be try-error going on for 15 more times and then
you get ‘it’. (it- meaning what you really want)
Tiny Cooper ties the lives of the two Will Grayson
in the end which makes him a hero
.
This book is a book about love in all its forms.
About falling in love, about falling out of love, about loving your family,
your friends, about realizing that love does not equal sex and its okay to love
platonically; it is about acceptance, love for oneself. Even if you are a gay
or the biggest fat guy.
P.S- This book describes about the things a teenager
guy faces being a straight or a gay whichever he is.
P.S.S- I can’t say whether you would like this book
or not because it truly depends if you are able to understand the authors point
of view.
Overall Rating: 3.6/5
