Book Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Title: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Authors: John Green and David Levithan

Rating:2/5

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.

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I’m a nerdfighter and therefore I’m a big fan of John Green since I started watching his Vlogbrother’s videos. I then began reading his books, and although his novels are not perfect I enjoy how relatable his characters usually are and the way he incorporates American literary texts in his narratives, like The Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman in Paper Towns. I’ve never read David Levithan before so this was my first introduction to his writing.

The narrative starts off really interestingly with the introduction of the two Will Graysons. Even though they are completely different and don’t even know about each other’s existence, they both feel disconnected from their own feelings and with the world, they can’t reconcile the ideas they have of how the world should be and how it actually is. Thus, they both deal with it in their personal ways. The first Will Grayson uses the power of silence to deal with his problems, if you don’t say what you feel, you don’t get involved and therefore you don’t have to care. The other Grayson who is in a deep clinical depression attempts to deal with his problems through cynicism and rudeness keeping people away. I thought that the mental state where the characters found themselves in the beginning of the novel were really poignant and I found it really relatable. I think that at some point in our lives we all have to face the fact that the world is not how we want it to be, and that it mostly kind of sucks! And I feel that most teenagers not knowing how to process those feelings would adopt the same attitudes. However, as soon as both characters meet, it all goes downhill. It ceases to be this realistic depiction of self-conflict and it becomes a fairy-tale. The characters change completely. They stop acting and speaking according to their initial personalities with no justifiable character development for that to occur. At the end of the novel the characters are supposed to have achieved some sort of epiphany and understanding of themselves and those around them, but the experiences presented in the book are not enough to make those changes believable. By the time I was reading the opening of Tiny’s musical show (Will Grayson’s best friend), I had completely lost any interest in the plot or the characters, and I thought that the whole show was just ridiculous, completely unrealistic and vomit inducing.

Regarding the characters, I thought that the initial representation of both Wills was really complex and believable. I understood how they felt and why they acted the way they did. I thought that the depiction of the first Will’s relationship to Tiny and his conflicting feelings about him were relatable, specifically how sometimes the things characteristics that you admire the most in your friends are also the things that will drive you crazy. On that same level, I also really enjoyed second Will’s relationship to Maura, and how although you they don’t particularly like each other they sort hang out because they have the fact that they hate everyone else in common. That also felt really convincing. When it comes to Tiny and Jane, I thought that their depiction was not so successful. Tiny just didn’t feel like a realistic character and he was very relatable. He felt like a prototype of a confident gay teenager character, who was also very egocentric and kind of inconsiderate. And Jane barely felt like a character at all, which is a problem I have with all John Green’s female characters. She is not a fully fledged character; instead her function is to further develop Will’s character. So we never get to know Jane, we only see her through Will’s own reflections and desires.

The, writing wasn’t bad. I felt the Green and Levithan’s writing style felt cohesive and was really funny at times, but I did miss Green’s more lyrical style of writing from his previous books.

So, although the novel has an interesting premise and it started out well, it soon went astray, lost its realistic touch and became too far-fetched. The shift of the character’s personality is not believable and it cheapens what was initially achieved. Ultimately this book is not worth reading. I’m giving this book two stars out of five.

Marcha do Orgulho Gay

Este sábado, no dia 18 de Junho ocorreu a 12ª Marcha do orgulho LGBT, juntando mais de 3500 pessoas em defesa dos direitos da comunidade lésbica, gay, bissexual e transgénero. Em foque estiveram as questões de adopção por casais homossexuais e o direito à mudança de sexo. É necessário lembrar que o casamento civil entre homossexuais foi aprovado pelo governo português há um ano atrás, no entanto, estes casais continuam sem o direito de adoptar crianças desfavorecidas. Por outro lado, o Serviço Nacional de Saúde perdeu o único médico que fazia cirurgias de mudança de sexo, prejudicando assim, potenciais transexuais que queiram completar a mudança de género com a operação. Por estas razões, e para combater a homofobia várias pessoas de diversos backgrounds reuniram – se no jardim Príncipe Real, tornando esta marcha uma das maiores marchas LGBT de Portugal.