As the title suggests, it's a story about 2 teenage boys who share the same name. That's pretty much the only thing they have in common but as luck would have it, their paths cross and suddenly their lives are intertwined.
And then there's Tiny Cooper. Big, gay and shameless Tiny Cooper who is the real gem in this story.
It's just brilliant how these 2 authors with different writing styles can collaborate and come up with something so seamless and well-blended. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is honest, real and loaded with absolutely wicked humor.
But what I loved most about this book was how it was filled with wonderful lessons on friendship--a theme I feel has been hard to find in most good books these days (it doesn't always have to be about true love). I loved that the be-all and end-all of the story was not about someone performing a grand gesture or professing love. It was simply about loving and accepting people who have always been there for you.
My favorite Will Grayson has to be Levithan's coz that kid is just all spunk. But credit has to be given to Green for the character that is Tiny Cooper.
Here are some pretty much all of my favorite quotes:
“Maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters.”
"I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do......You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?!”
“this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.”
“Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are. . . [But] I do pick you. . . We've been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I'd pick you.”
“All sorts of yayness floods my brain. Love is such a drug.”
“Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large.”
“You know what’s a great metaphor for love? Sleeping beauty. Because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up.
“The pure and simple truth
Is rarely pure and never simple.
What's a boy to do
When lies and truth are both sinful?”
Is rarely pure and never simple.
What's a boy to do
When lies and truth are both sinful?”
“rolf! what? are you really rolling on the floor laughing? well, please stay down there for a sec while I KICK YOUR ASS.”
"The things you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end."
“dating you would be like a series of unnecessary root canals interspersed with occasional makeout sessions.”
“Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?”
"< 3 You think that looks like a heart? If you do, that's only because you've never seen scrotum.”
“you’d think that silence would be peaceful. but really, it’s painful.”
“Random questions are the least random of all questions.”
"Being gay is not an excuse for being a dick.”
“me: you know what sucks about love?
o.w.g.: what?
me: that it's so tied to the truth.”
o.w.g.: what?
me: that it's so tied to the truth.”
“I'm not asexual. I'm arelationshipal.”
you know, how people say it's good luck if a bird shits on you? and people believe it! i just want to grab them and say, 'dude, don't you realize this whole superstition was made up because no one could think of anything else good to say to a person who'd just been shit upon?”
“Compromise is when you do what I tell you and I do what I want."
"Hurt tends to drown out sorry."
“I just think if you don't say the honest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true"
“there's no such thing as a fuck cure. a fuck cure is like the adult version of santa claus”
"Need is never a good basis for a relationship. It has to be much more than that."
“You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.”
"Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That's me: I'm not that."
"I will admit there's a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes into not giving a fuck. By saying you don’t care if the world falls apart, in some small way you’re saying you want it to stay together, on your terms."
"This is what I never allow myself to need. And of course I've been needing it all along."
"1. Don’t care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules."
"Some people have lives. Some people have music."
"She kisses like a sweet devouring and I don't know where to touch her because I want all of her."
"Anything that happens at once is just as likely to un-happen all at once."
Read the book, guys! It's worth it, I promise!
