CSS Reads
The best thing about Will
Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan is that it is
honest. It is blunt. It does not hide behind a hyped up glamour that so many
books do. No, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
is that it is totally up front about life and the ups and downs of
teenage-hood. It does not make life seem like something that is easy, because
it isn’t. Life can be and is most often hard, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson does not hide that fact.
Will Grayson, Will
Grayson shares the story of two high school boys both named Will Grayson –
but what is really interesting is that they don’t meet until a quarter of the
way into the novel, so instead you are enjoying the build-up to what you think
is the climax. Not so. Just like real life – which, unsurprisingly, is the
model for the book – there are many ups and downs. There are points where you
want to laugh – Tiny Cooper, a friend of one of the Will Graysons, is
definitely a person designed for laughs – and when you want to cry – the
character development is astonishing.
Personally, Will
Grayson, Will Grayson hit a lot of points close to home. It deals with
need, abandonment, how complicated a lie someone can weave, and perseverance. I
certainly shed a few tears when the going got tough, and I loved every moment
of it. What I loved even more was how David Levithan depicted chronic
depression. It is not something that you can cure with a laugh, it is not
something that somebody says they are for attention – no, it is a real mental
condition that affects real people. I loved how real Will Grayson, Will
Grayson was. There was no hiding behind the skirt of an ideal life, of an ideal reality that you can attain if you wish hard enough. And
that was amazing.
