will grayson, will grayson

look how beautiful the cover is!

so i just finished reading this really good book by john green and david levithan called "will grayson, will grayson" (or as my friends and i like to call it, "will grayson multiplied by two"). the storyline behind the book is pretty simple. two teenage boys that each have the exact same name (w i l l g r a y s o n) that live two completely different lives, coincidentally bump into each other on one regular night in chicago. 

so john and david decided to split it evenly in half. john green wrote the odd numbered chapters while david levithan wrote the even numbered ones. they both had their own will grayson to write about. for example: john's will grayson is in all the odd numbered chapters while david's will grayson is in the even numbered ones.)

so lets discuss the difference between these two will graysons:

john's will grayson (will grayson #1) is pretty much like that one friend in every group of friends out there. that friend that is pretty much like the third wheel. he's the friend that barely contributes any ideas to anything and is silent most of the time unless you ask him to speak. he is best friends with tiny cooper which ironically is the biggest person he knows and at the same time the gayest as well. he has a romantic interest in jane which is one of the friends in their group. 

now moving on to david's will grayson (will grayson #2). he's a angry teenage boy that suffers from severe depression and is also gay. he doesn't really have any friends at the very beginning of the book except for this girl named maura which had an interest in him but she was more of an acquaintance rather than a friend to him. the only person which he was close with was this internet friend of his named isaac which he later realised that it was maura all along that was pulling a cruel joke on him. 

so both will graysons meet one chicago night at this porn store. will grayson #1 had just been dumped by his group of friends to see a concert that he couldn't get into while will grayson #2 was supposed to meet isaac there but later found out from maura that she had set the whole thing up. they started talking to each other about their lives and by the end of that night go their separate ways once more. they never interact with each other again until at the very end of the book. 

after that encounter with each other, will grayson #2 gets into a relationship with tiny and he then discovers feelings of love that he had never felt before. meanwhile, tiny is writing a musical based on his life and about love. will grayson #1 realises then that he isn't as important to tiny as tiny is to him. he realises what it really feels to love someone that means a lot to you. 

"i think about how much depends upon a best friend. Then you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. you don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. the floor is always there. until it's not.”  - will grayson #1

just from that one simple quote, i can actually relate to it quite a lot. i guess that you can say that in a way i am very similar to will grayson #1. he does not know that his best friend is that important to him until he is forgotten by him. 

will grayson #1 mentions that he has a stuffed animal toy named marvin that he used to play with all the time but as the years went by marvin slowly grew less important to him. every once in a while will would still take marvin out of the closet for the stuffed toy's sake even though it sounds pathetic even to himself. sometimes will feels as if he is tiny's marvin and tiny is stuck with someone like him who probably cares more about his friends that they will ever about him. 

on a scale of 1 to 10 i can relate to this on the number 12. sometimes like will, i feel as if i'm never good enough for my best friend and that instead of wanting to be my friend they are stuck with me instead. i feel as if i am nothing but something that is just bothering them instead of benefitting them. from this, i've learned that love is complex and sometimes you don't exactly know that you love something or someone or even the relationship that you share with them until it's gone. 

this isn't the first john green book that i've read but it is the first time reading david levithan's writing. i am surprised to know that his writing is just as good as john green's and the next time i go book shopping i will be sure to pick up some of his books. 

this is seriously a good book and i'd highly recommend it to anyone. it's a great book about love and friendship and also all the feelings that come along with those two things. i'll give it a 10/10 (yes, it's that good) and it is now #2 on my list of favourite books of all time (after the perks of being a wallflower). 

do let me know if you'd like me to do more book reviews and also let me know if there's any books that you want me to read or do reviews about. ☺