If I had known more about Will Grayson, Will Grayson I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. What I did know was that it had gotten good reviews, people seemed to like it, it was about two boys with the same name who accidentally meet, and it had a shiny cover.
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[/amazon_link]I figured maybe there was a science fiction element, or at least magical realism to the book, owing to the strange coincidence. And the shiny cover.
I was so wrong.
I think the shiny cover is owing to one of the books more colorful characters, the big gay Tiny Cooper. There’s a lot of gay in this book, but this isn’t really a book about being gay as much as it is a book about trying to find your way through the minefields of your own emotions when you’re a brittle, mixed-up, angsty teenager and all you want to do is survive life without your heart exploding into a million glittering little shards.
The story is told by two Will Graysons in alternating chapters. The first Will Grayson is the straight friend of the aforementioned gay giant. Will lives by two rules: don’t care and shut up. He’s the opposite of his bold, live-out-loud pal, who says everything that he thinks and cares about everyone he meets. The second Will Grayson is a dark, depressed teen, living with his divorced mom and secretly carrying on an online love affair with another boy who he has never met. The two Wills and their respective worlds collide one night and no one escapes unchanged.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is at turns hilarious, poignant, heart-breaking, cringe-inducing and just plain wondrous. Early in the book, the first Will Grayson’s friend Jane wonders if it is possible for people to really have epiphanies, if one can actually have a sudden, life-changing insight. Later, they almost unknowingly experience such a moment together when Jane confronts Will and asks him to decide if she is his girlfriend or not.
She looks down for a second, and I notice her hair parted in the middle has an accidental zigzag at the top of her head, and I inhale to talk, but then she says, “Also I’m not going to be devastated or anything either way. I’m not that kind of person. I just think if you don’t say the honest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true, you know, and I–” she says, but then I hold up my finger, because I need to hear the thing she just said, and she talks too fast for me to keep up. I keep holding up my hand, thinking if you don’t say the honest thing, it never becomes true.
Despite epiphanies such as these, the characters in this book don’t all suddenly become perfect in the end. Far from it. If anything, they learn to look a little more honestly at their flaws, and to tolerate imperfections a bit more, in themselves and others. The book falters a bit in the final chapter, stretching believability where a grand gesture is required. And though Tiny Cooper is an undeniably well-drawn character, the truth is a little Tiny goes a long way and we’ve probably had our fill by the end.
No matter. What Will Grayson, Will Grayson shows us in the end is that you can love, you can lose, you can hurt and be crushed and feel pain in ways you never knew you could, but what you cannot do is remain silent. Honor what’s real, whatever reality holds for you, and say the honest thing.