Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

It's easy to talk about a book and start with, 'This book is hard to talk about.'  The reasons stated can range from plot sensitivity to the book not making a strong enough connection with the reviewer to share anything of merit.  Will Grayson, Will Grayson is difficult talk about for a very unique reason: it follows two narratives, one written by each author, each dealing with a different main character named 'Will Grayson.'

From a distance--before I actually read the book--I had many thoughts as to what the story was about and how this mechanic would work: alternate realities in which we see the same person live different lives under different circumstances; maybe how Will Grayson sees his life and how the rest of the world see Will Grayson living his life (which is close to what happens); or perhaps some psychological study.  Upon reading the novel it is much more simple than my supposition: it deals with two guys, one in Evanston the other in run down, not so nice part of Naperville (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist considering my past visits to Naperville), both named Will Grayson and the circumstances that lead their lives to coincide.

Halfway through the book, I think to myself, 'Well this is cute,' and it's not even that I wanted something more substantial, and while I was compelled to read (I'll say it consumed me, five hours over two day; done) I did finish it slightly wondering what it was about and if the story mechanic involving a grand coincidence of meeting someone with your name and having them play a role in your life was merely underwhelming or fell short of its potential. 

The difficulty of two Will Grayson's is made easy to follow as the chapters alternate between their perspectives: one Will's story is told fluidly as you'd expect to find in a novel, the other Will (they each refer to the other in the book as 'The Other Will Grayson' or 'o.w.g.' somewhat surprisingly it's never confusing) doesn't believe in punctuation and the dialogue is presented in a slightly manic shorthand.  For my purposes there will be Will Grayson, and will grayson, respectively. 

Both Will's struggle with complications of being teenagers and who they will allow themselves to be.  Will, has very specific rules of engagement with other people that he strictly adheres to; with his conflicting desire to be with a certain girl and polarizing love of the fact that he is not in a relationship.  will, with his antidepressants, feeling of isolation and wholly repulsive feelings of lack of self worth and insecurity won't allow himself true friendship.  (In a cast of infuriating characters, will grayson was particularly hard to like.) 

The Wills unifying thread is the larger-than-life, unstoppable force of nature that is Tiny Copper: a division one, college football nose tackle who is not only physically massive but whose capacity for being gay may take the crown when it comes to fiction.  (A crown Tiny would be ecstatic to win.)  Will Grayson laments having Tiny as a friend, claiming he has no choice in the matter; that he is stuck with Tiny.  will grayson is always furious with himself for pushing people away and never allows anyone to be as close a friend as Will Grayson and Tiny are, and will grayson does this for reasons that were never made fully convincing to me.

Tiny is loud and obnoxious and a bit of a bully (meant in the best of positive, friendliest of ways).  The story is supposed to be about both Wills learning that they need other people in their lives and yet the book is undoubtedly about Tiny.  Which, of course, makes one question the title. 

In my past reading experience with Green, he has proven very comfortable using a secondary character to narrate the story of someone else's life. (Quentin from Paper Towns told the story but Margo was certainly the main character, just as The Fault in Our Stars was Augustus' story as told by Hazel)  This is my first experience reading Levithan but he displays his more intimate, brooding, slightly self-destructive will grayson with equal aplomb as Green's reluctant extrovert. 

A cruel trick by a questionable friend bring the Wills together and it's Tiny who manages to enhances, and--on the scale of high school drama--ruin each of their lives.  There's a rapid rise of maturity displayed by both Wills at the book's conclusion concerning forgiveness and acceptance that didn't ring true to me, especially considering their previous behavior.  By the end, Will gets the girl (no surprise) and will confronts a lot of problems and internal turmoil.  The novel lacked a climax for either character that felt like it would lead their characters to truly change or grow, and in a bad way the larger-than-life, flawed-but-awesome Tiny remains the same from start to finish.

I don't really know what Will Grayson, Will Grayson was about but it was incredibly fun: a word that concretely means nothing in today's vernacular and yet one that I can not ascribe to the vast majority of what is possibly 'better than this' fiction out there.  There's tension, conflict, forward motion, even resolution all despite the story being relatively weak.  I doubt this is either author's best work but it's easy to get caught up in the specifics of the story, speculate about characters, and even if the conclusion doesn't resonate as strongly as it could have, don't be surprise if you don't notice due to the fact that you'll be having such a good time reading.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

No.  John Green I refuse to let you manipulate my emotions.  I am in control of me; and will not yield to you.  I actively started not reading this book about a year ago when it first came out and I felt the world was telling me I had to read it immediately.  In addition to feeling like I was being commanded to read the book I learned what it was about and then attempted to put even greater distance between myself and the book.  As 2012 came to a close there were very few 'best of list' that featured fiction and didn't have The Fault in Our Stars listed.  After about three quarters of a year's worth of John Green anxiety and hearing about this particular book I read Paper Towns to scratch the itch.  A year later and Green is my favorite new-to-me author and here i am adding to the limitless talk about The Fault in Our Stars.  

It's a doomed young adult romance in which Hazel, the story's main character, has terminal cancer.  I can guarantee that if I hadn't already read Paper Towns I wouldn't have picked up this book.  It's sad and you have to sign up for that before you even start reading.  It's unexpected and poignant and certainly not the cancer book you may think it is.  (Green actually addressed the stigma of writing 'that cancer book' within the narrative.)   

Hazel meets her boyfriend, Augustus, at a cancer support group for teenagers and while the book's infrastructure is set to accommodate the most mopey, sad book about kids with various horrible cancers that is exactly not what we get.  Green is hilarious and while he never seeks to skirt the gravity of the subject matter his characters laugh at their condition just as they are assuredly terrified of their reality.  The story is very simple as we watch Hazel and Augustus' relationship develop in spite of a rapid health decline.   

Part of me felt that events moved too fast.  Nothing came across as rushed and while Green's writing is super easy to read the absurdly funny dialogue is balanced with some very substantial prose.  In the beginning, the scenario plot points seemed to move really quickly from point a to b.  Hazel breaks out of secluded depression mighty fast.  She turned into a moody social teenager with a quickness considering how she describes her life on the first page.  There were a few other points that felt a bit false to me, but nothing that was going to keep me from turning pages. 
 
I have this hangup with dialogue, readers of my blog may already be familiar with this gripe.  While it's not a 'chatty' book, and even though nearly everything said is funny, I did at times question what was being said.  Their words were never fake or too old for their age (though a couple times came close) and while super quick witty dialogue is great and a blast to read it's also not realistic.  I was okay with all the jokes (and the feeling that some characters had a few preloaded and waiting to go) and the responses they got, but some of the speeches Augustus made made me think, 'People don't talk like this.'  I understand his situation and how it would have to alter his view on many things, but it was almost as if he had thought out these lofty ideas and principles in advance and then was merely waiting for the perfect moment to pontificate.  Which, to me, cheapened some of his interaction with Hazel, as if she were just a prop to help him soapbox.  I felt Green perhaps indulged my complaint--if not thought the same thing--when during a conversation Hazel interrupts Augustus and he makes a joke about having memorized this speech and how important it was for her to not interrupt so he can get through it.  It was funny at the time that Augustus called himself out, but it also served to focus and highlight my 'people don't talk like this' gripe.  None of this comes off as poorly done and it took me a few days after finishing to put a finger on what was bothering me.   

If you have a pulse you should expect to fall apart when reading and though you can't be shocked at what happens there certainly is a huge surprise at the end.  It's funny.  It's fast.  It will even get you thinking.  (How many other books have 'existentially wrought free throws?')  In the future I will refrain from starting my new year in reading with a book that so many thought to be the best of the previous year; doing so sets the bar way too high. 

For another take on the same book, check out what Maria has to say. 

Paper Towns by John Green

And all at once I knew how Margo Roth Speigelman felt when she wasn't being Margo Roth Spiegelman: she felt empty.  She felt the unscalable wall surrounding her.  I thought of her asleep on the carpet with only that jagged sliver of sky above her.  Maybe Margo felt comfortable there because Margo the person lived like that all the time: in an abandoned room with blocked-out windows, the only light pouring in through holes in the roof.  Yes.  The fundamental mistake I had always made--and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make--was this: Margo was not a miracle.  She was not an adventure.  She was not a fine and precious thing.  She was a girl.  Page 199

Quentin and Margo have grown up together as best friends since they were two.  Their lives are marked by finding a suicide victim in a park as children.  As they grow older Margo becomes something more than just the most popular girl in school; a transcendental figure who embodies so much that everyone wants to be but so few even attempt aspire to.  They live next door to each other and keep up but aren't exactly close friends by the time high school graduation comes around.  Margo's disappearance--which isn't exactly something new--highlights and questions much of what Quentin thought he liked, and makes him reexamine his friendships and himself.  

Upon learning that her boyfriend is cheating on her and that her best friend has been keeping the secret for a while, Margo--out of the blue--takes Quentin out for a night of vengeance on her enemies (which includes a dangerous eyebrow removal from a school bully, breaking into Sea World, and depositing dead fish in the most choice places to rot).  The two spend more time together that night and talk more than they had previously for years.  Then, Margo leaves.  Just falls off the planet.  

To the chagrin of her parents, who are over it and her, Margo has done this before and it's up to Quentin and his friends to follow her clues and find her.  Quentin is the only one who genuinely wants to find her because he has this idea of who she is in his mind and who he wants her to be and is hopelessly in love.  Reconciling his ideal and the reality of the person is difficult for him, but not anyone else involved in the search.

As the days pass and there is still no sign of her, it's assumed Margo is dead and while everyone is saddened by the prospect to all but Quentin, Margo's death is more like waking up from a really good dream, because the myth that Margo had created for herself was a bit too big to properly fit into anyone's life.  

Quentin is a tone-deaf Duke bound band nerd who wishes he was cool enough and had some musical inclination to actually be in band.  He is the ideal narrator for the story as both his parents are therapist which means that he is 'really goddamned well adjusted.'  Radar is the only person nerdier than Quentin and lives in shame of the fact that his parents own the world's largest collection of black Santas.  Ben, Q's other best friend, is The Consummate band nerd, keg stand champion, un-dateable prom king who is terrified of dying a virgin.  If Margo is to be found it falls to these three to do the deed.  

Green made an ass out of me multiple times as I loudly laughed out loud more than once on the train.  Humor is certainly the most prevalent facet of his writing but almost secretly spread through three-hundred pages is an equal amount poignancy concerning all that Margo would deem 'paper': the two-dimensional paper boys and paper girls she knows and the life she's led with no real substance other than do what you're told and follow this mold to success.  It's a subtle theme but it's there.  At first I interpreted her ideas as 'spoiled-ass, rich, self-entitled suburban white kid complaining about lack of depth in her life as only a spoiled-ass, rich, self-entitled suburban white kid can.'  I wasn't exactly wrong but--while the book never directly makes mention of the fact, we come to see that Margo isn't okay.  She has some serious issues and serious problems that need to be dealt with and probably isn't a good idea (or person) for Quentin or anyone else to be in love with in her present condition, should she still be alive.

She's not just self-destructive and unstable (and boy oh boy was it refreshing to see those traits displayed in a teenager in a book without the kid going through the regular sex, drugs, and alcohol thing) but also wholly undesirable.  As I read, I kept wondering, why are we following or even interested in this girl?  Surely the author wouldn't reward such a character as Margo while making Q go through so much.  As I got to the end, I didn't so much feel a sense of vindication rather an expansion on my part concerning some of the ideas Green was trying to convey: that she didn't have to fit in, be fake or 'paper.'  I wouldn't go so far as to say the book was bitter sweet but there certainly is no happily ever after.  

I'm amazed I've written what I've written thus far, because all I thought I'd write about was how this is the single funniest book I've ever read.  It's organic humor: not a slapstick routine or situational comedy.  While the dialogue is top-notch (and I'm not usually one for chatty books, but it doesn't come across that way) it's in setting that Green prepares most of the humor.

I was trying to think of another one when we all three simultaneously saw the human-shaped container of anabolic steroids known as Chuck Parson walking toward us with some intent.  Chuck Parson did not participate in organized sports, because to do so would distract from the larger goal of his life: to one day be convicted homicide.  "Hey, faggots," he called. Page 17

It struck me as somewhat unfair that an asshole like Jason Worthington would get to have sex with both Margo and Becca when perfectly liable individuals such as myself don't get to have sex with either of them--or anyone else, for that matter.  That said, I like to think that I am the type of person who wouldn't hook up with Becca Arrington.  She may be hot, but she is also 1. Aggressively vapid, and 2. An absolute, unadulterated, raging bitch.  Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.  "Becca does sort of suck," I said, trying to draw Margo back into conversation.  Page 38

In truth the book isn't as 'chatty' as I alluded too before.  The dialogue is frequent but it's as organic as the humor and never comes across as that all too carefully crafted witty chatter that many contemporary writers incorporate that always strikes me too good to be real.  It's all that the characters don't say that make their actual words hilarious.  Except for Ben: everything, said or not, involving Ben is painfully funny.    

It's on a road trip to find Margo (so much of this book takes place in a mini-van, I'm amazed at Green's creativity considering his choice of primary setting) that we discover Paper Towns isn't about Margo.  It's a long drive from Orlando to Agloe, New York and Radar's games to pass the time--meta physical eye spy, and the awesome 'That guy is a Gigolo'--reveal that it is not the particular object of the game that the players become educated about or endowed to as they ask questions and try to learn what is in someone else's mind, rather it is the players that learn so much about themselves through their speculation and guessing.  Quentin has no idea why Dartmouth bound Radar would forgo his high school graduation ceremony and almost assuredly having sex that night to drive cross country in search of one who Quentin deems to be one of the planet's most shallow people.  Despite his best efforts to discern the answer, Quentin also doesn't know why Ben is his friend at all (I loved that guy!)  All he knows is that these are his friends who would support and sacrifice for him, which makes him question the terms of his relationship with Margo and her self centered attention getting.  

There is an air of unbelievability about the book.  This feeling is stomped out by Margo in her night of vengeance: after that one night which happens in the very beginning, everything seemed possible.  Read it because it's funny; because of Radar and Ben; because I didn't even find space to tell you about Quentin being yelled at for 'not being proactive in the battle against the cow.'  The book is too compressed in terms of time to be 'coming of age.'  It is marked 'young adult' which only further confuses me as to what that term means.  Read it because it's fun and it will fly by and if you find other reasons to like as well, which you will, then so be it.  

It's not everyday I finish a book with such a strong sense of satisfaction and completion that I'm hesitant to pick up another.