Will Grayson, Will Grayson

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Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David LevithanWill Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Publisher: Speak
Number of pages: 301
My copy: paperback, Christmas gift from a colleague

will grayson, meet will grayson

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers cross paths. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, culminating in heroic turns-of-heart and the most epic musical ever to grace the high school stage.

* * *

There was a time soon after I graduated college that I was so obsessed with High School Musical. I was unemployed, and I was a kid at heart who can’t stop watching Disney Channel all day while I did nothing, so when I saw the trailer for High School Musical, I was curious. Then I watched it, and watched it and I couldn’t stop. I loved the entire thing. I even bought the book, and then watched the movie(s) and played the songs until I got sick of it all. But I have fond memories of those movies, and sometimes I kinda wish that I can break into song any time and people will just join me in singing…even if I can’t sing. Haha.

But anyway. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan features two Will Graysons who meet one night in the strangest place in Chicago.. There’s the “don’t speak, don’t participate” Will Grayson, best friend to Tiny Cooper, a large and gay guy who heads their school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. All Will is concerned with is not getting noticed, but being friends with Tiny Cooper makes that difficult. And then there’s Tiny’s friend Jane, who seems nice, but Will wasn’t sure if she’s straight or not. And then there’s Will # 2, or will grayson (without the caps), who lives a hard and isolated life, with just an online friend named Isaac making his life easier. The two Wills meet one night, and then their lives change…and it all goes down in a high school musical made by Tiny Cooper.

It seemed like the best time to read a John Green book where he wrote with someone else is always around the holiday season. Or maybe I’m just saying that now because last year, I read Let It Snow around Christmas time too, and I enjoyed it, so when I was looking for a happy book to read during the holidays this year, I decided to read this book. I was already tickled by the first chapter — classic Green, introducing his main characters: a lead who isn’t really interested in standing out, a girl who seems partially unattainable, and a loud sidekick (except this time we have a louder and bigger sidekick). It was cute, and then I go into the other will’s world and I was plunged into a dark, depressing world. I almost stopped — what was this? Why is this will so sad? And why is it taking so long for the two Wills to meet?

I honestly thought I wouldn’t like it, especially since I felt that will’s chapters were too depressing. Granted, will was depressed, but I wanted to finish his chapters so I can go back to the other Will, who was partially pleasant. That, and it was kind of fun reading Tiny Cooper, even if it seems like the book should have been about him because…well, it was all about him. Suddenly he didn’t seem like a sidekick. But anyway, I found Will’s chapters funnier, and I liked the cute little “dancing” thing he had with Jane. It was something you’d expect from John Green, really, and it was really nice to read.

I really thought I wouldn’t like the book, but then I got to the end and I actually found myself tearing up at some parts. I think the best part of this book isn’t the romance, or even the Will Graysons meeting, but Will’s friendship with Tiny. It reminded me a little of my own friendships with people and how true it was with how we all just happened to be friends, and we didn’t really seek each other out at first. Although I don’t completely buy the fact about you can’t pick who your friends are, I like the sentiment that Will expressed when he told Tiny that if he could pick his friends, he would still pick Tiny. That was really heartwarming.

The ending did feel a little contrived, but I thought it was sweet and funny, especially at the exchanging numbers part. Hihi. But it was a nice way to end it, especially since I’ve long suspended my disbelief with how the musical came together and all that. Just like in High School Musical – you don’t really think what they did could happen in real life, right? But still, it was fun to watch, and it was a nice and sweet ending. Same with Will Grayson, Will Grayson: the ending was nice and heartwarming, and I actually found tears in my eyes by the time I ended the book.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson isn’t exactly the best holiday read (or…I don’t think it really counts as one, really), but I enjoyed reading it. Oh, and I remember people telling me that Tiny Cooper is the best John Green sidekick…but I think I’m still a Radar – Paper Towns kind of girl. :D

Number of dog-eared pages: 30

Favorite dog-eared quotes:

When things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It’s because a little piece gets lost – the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed. (p. 174)

It seems to me that all things we keep in sealed boxes are both alive and dead until we open the box, that the unobserved is both there and not. (p. 197)

When you date someone, you have markers along the way, right. You kiss, you have The Talk, you say the Three Little Words, you sit on a swing set and break up. You can plot the points on a graph…But with friendship, there’s nothing like that. Being in a relationship, that’s something you choose. Being friends, that’s just something you are. (p. 260)

We’ve been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I’d pick you. (p. 260)

Rating: [rating=4]

Other reviews:
Oops, I Read A Book Again

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Required Reading 2013: March

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February was a fabulous month, if I do say so myself. Many things happened in February, but three major bookish things happened to me:

  1. My book/short story discussion happened last weekend (and I wrote about it here)
  2. My new Kindle Paperwhite that finally arrived:

    Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite ♥

    Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite ♥

  3. I finally finished Les Misérables! (On Valentine’s Day!)

So February was a very good bookish month, all things considered. A recap of my February Required Reading books:

  • Every Day by David Levithan (4/5) – Levithan does it again. There were several memorable quotes here, and it was the right book to start February with. I still like The Lover’s Dictionary just a bit more, but Every Day is pretty good.
  • Boundless by Cynthia Hand (4/5) – The finale to my favorite angel series. I lost sleep over this! Still gathering my thoughts for my review – wait for it!
  • Fourteen Love Stories edited by Jose Dalisay Jr. and Angelo R. Lacuesta (3/5) – It was okay, and there were some stories I really liked, but there were others that I was kind of ambivalent about. I guess I was expecting it to give me more feels?

I wasn’t able to crack open For Darkness Shows the Stars at all, and I’m still in the middle of Ghostwritten, but I won’t include them in the next month’s list anymore. I did read several romance books in the last month to keep up with the theme — needless to say, I had a very “romantic” month because of all that.

On to my favorite month!

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Every Day

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Every Day by David LevithanEvery Day by David Levithan
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Number of pages: 304
My copy: paperback, from National Bookstore

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

* * *

I can’t exactly say I’m a huge, huge fan of David Levithan’s books, although I admit that I like reading his stuff. I mean, I enjoyed The Lover’s Dictionary immensely and I am rather charmed by Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, but it doesn’t make me feel like I would go out and read everything he ever wrote. For Mr. Levithan, I still rely a bit on reviews before I actually get one of his new books again.

And that is why I got myself a copy of Every Day. Truth be told, the summary isn’t enough to get to me — I tend to avoid paranormal things unless I’m watching the series or I strike a particular mood, and Every Day‘s synopsis kind of reminds me of those insta-love things that I don’t really like. Granted, it seems more sci-fi than paranormal, but it wasn’t until I read Wendy’s review of the book that kind of sealed the deal for me.

So A is a…being. Something. He wakes up in a different body everyday, and he has no attachments, no nothing. He cannot afford to have them because nothing is permanent in his world anyway. Until one morning, when he wakes up in the body of Justin and meets his girlfriend, Rhiannon. Suddenly, there’s something that makes him want to stay — and it’s Rhiannon.

We don’t get explanations why A jumps from one body to another, so we pretty much have to accept what he can do at the start. It was a bit hard for me to swallow, especially when my mind gets confused when A is in a female body but in my mind he is still a male. Then I recount his/her interactions with Rhiannon, and it gets even more confusing. There’s a lot to question, and if you’re sci-fi buff, you’d wish for an explanation, and that was never really provided in the book.

However, there is something about the way Levithan writes. Just like Dash in Dash and Lily and that unnamed narrator in The Lover’s Dictionary, Levithan’s words captured me and made me dog-ear so many pages in the book. Case in point:

What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity?…The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations – all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be. (p. 23)

This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be. (p. 175)

Every Day had the right amount of angst and hope and sentimentality to make me sigh at the early parts of February. Some book club friends and I had a readalong for it, and we had a very interesting discussion about love, about A and if there’s anything selfish about falling in love. I honestly felt sad for A because he cannot afford to have memories, and so he clings so hard to Rhiannon because she seems to be the only good thing that he can hold on to.

It’s sad, and somehow you knew it was a doomed thing from the start. I wondered how Levithan would end it, and I was really pleased with what he did with the ending. It seemed the most right thing to do. It wasn’t the easiest decision, but perhaps it was the best for the both of them. It doesn’t make it less sad, though.

But…that’s love. More than being a decision, love is choosing what’s best for the other person, even if it is at the cost of your own happiness. I read this article sometime last year that hits this right on the head (emphasis mine): How do you truly know whether you are committed to this person and that you truly love him or her? Here’s how you know: Your love is directly proportional to your willingness to act unselfishly, to even let the person think less of you, if in doing so you are serving their spiritual advancement.

Every Day isn’t the kind of book that will give you all the warm fuzzies, but I think it’s a pretty good one even so. And while I still can’t say I’m a huge David Levithan fan after this, I will still be on the look out for his books, if only to read passages such as the ones above and one like this:

When first love ends, most people eventually know there will be more to come. They are not through with love. Love is not through with them. It will never be the same as the first, but it will be better in different ways.

Rating: [rating=4]

Required reading - February

Other reviews:
taking a break
The Midnight Garden
The Readventurer

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Required Reading 2013: February

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As always, I owe this blog a couple of reviews, but it’s not that big of a backlog just yet so I will get to that before I traipse to another country next week. But look, it’s a brand new month, and suddenly it’s February! How can January go by so fast again?

I don’t mind. I find that I am actually starting to like February. When I was younger, I kind of didn’t like it because I swallow a bitter pill every February with all the love in the air. But then I realized I should stop being like that and you know, just bask in the love.

But that’s for a post on the personal blog. A new month means another time for Required Reading! Before I go with my February list, though, here’s a recap of January:

  • Life of Pi by Yann Martel (5/5) – I really, really liked this, and I really liked the movie, too. It was a great book to start the year, and I have collected a sizable amount of quotes from this book. Plus, Richard Parker is just …rawr. :3
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (3.5/5) – I normally don’t give half stars, but I’m sort of conflicted between a 3 to 4 for this book, so I will settle for a 3.5 for now. I liked the book a lot, but I realize I may not be totally amazed with it. We had a very great discussion about this, though, and it was a great start to our book club’s year. :)

I’m still reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (p. 1110 out of 1463 — almost done!!!), and Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, so I’m bumping them to February as spillovers. I would’ve just read them in another month but I already started, so let’s just continue reading.

Required reading - February

Now for February, I’ll be moderating our book club’s discussion for the month. It was our first moderator’s pick, and I realize that February will be quite a busy month, so I didn’t want to pick something thick or too challenging. So I went for the easiest pick (for me anyway): romance. Okay fine, it’s not like I’m expert with that genre, but I didn’t want anything too heavy so let’s go for those quick contemporary romance novellas, right? Interestingly, a short story won in the polls, so this month, we’re discussing Dead Stars by Paz Marquez Benitez.

Since it’s just a short story, I wanted to add a bit more challenge in the group, so I came up with a mini challenge — and of course, the theme is still romance. I was kind of surprised with how enthusiastic everyone was and now everyone’s recommending books and movies and TV shows to one another. Oh so much love in the air in our book club!

And so, if it’s not obvious yet, my theme for this month’s Required Reading is love. <3

Required Reading February books

  1. Fourteen Love Stories edited by Jose Dalisay Jr. and Angelo R. Lacuesta – I’ve been eying this book since I saw it on my friend’s shelves, and because it had Dead Stars in it. I wanted this to be our book for discussion, but I had a hard time looking for print copies, so I decided to just go for an ebook copy. It’s been a while since I read an anthology and this seems fitting this month. :)
  2. Every Day by David Levithan – I’ve heard so many good things about this one, so I’m excited about this. I haven’t read all of Levithan’s work, but I really liked The Lover’s Dictionary. We’re buddy-reading this in the club, and I’m really liking a lot of lines in this book.
  3. Boundless by Cynthia Hand – my good friend Kai lent me the ARC because she knows how much I’ve been waiting for this. Liked Unearthly, loved Hallowed, and I am really, really hoping that this book won’t break my heart too much.
  4. For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund – I kind of doubt that I’d have time to read this, but I figure I’d throw it in in case I find some time. This is a retelling of my favorite Jane Austen, Persuasion. :)

And again, there are the spillovers – LesMis and Ghostwritten. I have no idea how much I’ll finish this month, but I will try! :) Love, love, and more love, yes? :)

I hope you find lots of love in the books you read this month, too! If you’re participating in this challenge, leave a comment below so I can link you. :)

My friends put up reading lists, too!

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Faves of TwentyEleven: The Covers

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And we’re at the last installment of the Faves of TwentyEleven series, hosted by Nomes of inkcrush! In case you missed the others, here are the other posts in my Faves of TwentyEleven series:

I had so much fun coming up with this list, and this last one is the first time I’m doing this. I’m not much of a cover person, as I have stressed in several posts before this, but I’m also one who can still appreciate nice covers. I think my opinion of covers is just a little better than my opinion about other things…like say, basement tiles. So now, here are some of my favorite covers for the books I read in 2011.

Day Five: The Covers

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