Bibliographical information:

Green, John, and David Levithan. Will Grayson, Will Grayson. New York: Dutton Juvenile (Penguin), 2010.

Brief summary:

This novel explores the relationships among two teenagers named Will Grayson and a third named Tiny Cooper. One Will introduces Tiny in the novel's second paragraph, explaining that "Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe that 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" (3). Tiny is large not only physically, but also in the emotional space he occupies in each Will's life and in the life of his high school, where he has convinced the Gay-Straight Alliance to mount a production of the musical he's writing about his life. The two Will Graysons narrate the novel in alternating chapters written by the two authors.

Comments:

There's a lot going on in this novel, between the alternating narrators, the play on two characters with the same name, Tiny's evolving play within a play, not to mention separate romances for each Will Grayson. On the whole, though, I think that it works, as does the balance between snarky teen humor and warm fuzzy treatments of real friendship.

Grade/Age level:

young adult

Cautions:

If you like this book, you might also like . . .

--Lisa Gordis

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