Will Grayson, Will Grayson
by John Green & David Levithan, 310 pages
This book's been on my 'too read' list since it came out. After Tiger recently reviewed it, I decided I needed to finally read it. I rarely read young adult novels, but I do enjoy them in general.
The overall story was entertaining and the message being conveyed came through loud and clear. However, I had a couple issues with this book.
1. I really thought the authors tried to cram too many types of characters into one book. Gay, goth, terribly depressed, super fat kid, etc. Maybe it's just me, but I felt they could have spent less effort on that and more on just developing a couple more intricately.
2. Although the above details were mentioned, there wasn't much to really give you a feel for how the characters looked. Everyone might not care about this, but I like to have a little something to give me a picture in my head of the characters. For some reason, I pictured nothing.
There are so many books out there now for teens that deal with being gay. I don't know if this is because so many teens are coming out or if it was just a niche that needed to be filled, but I think it's a good thing. When I was in high school, there were kids who were gay, but they did not come out until they left high school and the town, for good. I grew up in a very rural area though, so I know this was a factor. I wonder, however, if it might have been a little different if books such as these were accessible for those teens to read and relate to.
Anyway, though I thought a few things could be improved upon, I did still enjoy reading this, and it was a quick read, as teen novels tend to be.
This blog is the home of the St. Louis Public Library team for the Missouri Book Challenge. The Missouri Book Challenge is a friendly competition between libraries around the state to see which library can read and blog about the most books each year. At the library level, the St. Louis Public Library book challenge blog is a monthly competition among SLPL staff members and branches. For the official Missouri Book Challenge description see: http://mobookchallenge.blogspot.com/p/about-challenge.h
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