Erin

I listened to the audio version on my commute. If I'd been reading it anywhere else, there are about twenty different places I would have put it down, never to return. There were a lot of places where the story lagged significantly and Grossman focused intensely instead on his main character's lack of internal development. The main character wasn't evil, nor was he good. He wasn't as smart as he thought he was, but he certainly wasn't stupid. Mostly, he and his utter lack of ambition were just dull. I appreciate Grossman's love of the genre, and the world he created was interesting enough (and peppered with many references to classics of the genre), but I could not get past this bore of a main character.

I listened to the audio version that is available through Audible, and it was a very enjoyable addition to my commute. Having grown up in the area made this alternate history especially entertaining. The very end included a twist that I somehow hadn't expected coming, although you might end up reading it and thinking it obvious. I blame being distracted by my commute, but regardless, even if I had seen it coming, I would have loved it all the same. I'm really excited to move on to the next installment in the series.

I didn't really think I'd connect well with this novel, for reasons that are unclear to me, and obviously completely misguided anyway. Why must John Green do this me? And now, with friends working with him! In all seriousness, it was a delightful read and an insightful exploration of the nature of friendship, love, and radical truth-telling.

There are two Will Graysons. They have a chance meeting late one night in Chicago. One Will Grayson is best friends with Tiny Cooper, and upon meeting up in Chicago, the other Will Grayson ends up falling in love with Tiny Cooper. It turns out, this story isn't so much about either Will Grayson, despite the fact that they share alternating point of view. Tiny Cooper is the real star of the show, acting at once as the mirror that the Wills see themselves in, as the comic relief, and as the source of the courage that each Will needs to be radically honest with themselves. Tiny Cooper excels at what neither Will Greyson is good at–being unabashedly, unapologetically, and unflinchingly himself, publicly, and with enthusiasm.

Tiny Cooper is the optimism and the hope and the resilience that we all hope to have in adulthood. He still experiences pain, and life is almost never completely easy for him (save for the fact that his parents are rich), and he is far from perfect, but he has not given up nor given in. One Will Grayson has dealt with his pain and suffering by erecting a wall around himself consisting of a couple of rules, among them: do not care, and don't say anything. With these rules, he hopes to save himself from the trouble that inevitably ensues whenever he does care or does speak up. In essence, he chooses not to feel. The other Will Grayson takes a different approach. Finding himself unable to shut off the flow of pain and anger, he takes medication for clinical depression, and he pushes away everyone who loves him. If he can't stop feeling this way, he figures, he should at least keep other people from having to suffer with him. In these three characters, we have a moving meditation on what we can do with heartbreak.

This is also a meditation on the nature of friendships. Early in the novel one of the Will Graysons shares that old adage (by way of his father) that “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.” He then goes on to prove it wrong. It's a corny line, and a funny scene, but the bit of truth within it is profound–that we really do not choose our friends. We find our friends, and sometimes they find us, and sometimes we don't even really know how we found each other. But we do not pick them, as if they were t-shirts we could just shove in a drawer until we want them. Friends are neither choosable, nor expendable.

It is Tiny Cooper that really brings this message home in the end, however. It is through his eyes that we see the history he and his friend, Will Grayson, have, and the importance of that history. History alone isn't enough to sustain a friendship when it's broken, but it can be enough to motivate a heartfelt reconciliation when both parties are brave enough to be radically honest with themselves first.

This is a book about love: parental love, friendly love, romantic love, but most of all complicated, messy, human love.

A friend recommended this to me way back in high school, around when it first came out. It was then recommended to me again in college, with specific directions to listen to the audio version. I finally got around to it, almost a decade later, and I wish I'd listened to it a lot earlier! I understand why it was recommended to me now, too–I speak French about the same as Sedaris describes speaking it, despite many years of classes.