#my flex is that i can spell his name without triple checking with google

[plantdad-dante]

Book #129 - Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

(second time read; although, the only thing I remember from depressed-teenage-me's opinion on it was "kinda weird? seriously, am I the only one who finds it really kinda weird?", and... oh boy, if that is not an understatement)

I remember I mostly pretended to like this book because a friend back then loved it so much she was going to give a book presentation on it and this friend was always kind of the one friend who you're really afraid to differ in opinion with because what if they ditch you.

Anyway. Someone mark the calendar, a John Green book actually emotionally affected me! (Is it David Levithan's influence? Who knows.) Like, for a second. For a second, the Straight!Will & Tiny plot actually got to me (code word: baseball dugout). And then I remembered I really disliked Tiny, and the bubble burst, but for a second there, it had me!

The rest... well. Let me say it like this.

Straight!Will: Less annoying than I found him at 15, but still plenty annoying. Also the character who is responsible for probably the only "No Ace, Though!" I will ever encounter in a book, ever. Because dude... dude. What The Fuck Do You Mean.

Jane: Give me two weeks and I will not be able to tell her apart from the girl in the Katherine book. Just another case of "quirky cardboard".

Tiny: Listen. I get it? I get his problems, and why he is the way he is and does the stuff he does? But I just do not possess the patience to deal with people like that. And then somehow the whole book just strangely fixates on him and I just cannot deal with meddling attention sponges like that. I know it sounds massively judgy, but... I can't. I just can't.

Gay!Will: Let me tell you, I related to some pretty edgy, misanthropic bullshit at the height of my depressed pretentiousness. Looking back, it was very much the perfect mix of "concerning, yet cringe". That being said, I remember very clearly that, even at 15, I classified this Will as "a bit much". Paint your own picture accordingly.

Maura: Newsflash! Your friends (or "friends") do not owe you their coming out, and they do not owe you the details of their mental illness, either. Also, surprise! Catfishing is wrong, regardless of your fucking intentions. Why the fuck does Will have to apologize to her in the end?? Not that he didn't do anything wrong in this arrangement (he could really have communicated better - then again, depression), but her shit massively outweighs his? Because if I remember correctly, Will "knew" "Isaac" for a whole year. Aka almost the entirety of the Maura-Will "friendship". Girl, give him a chance to warm up to you. Or take a hint, prioritize yourself, and piss off.

Like... I promise, it is possible to make peace with yourself and your choices without having to talk to people who hurt you massively. It is possible to cut people off and not look back and be at peace with it. It is possible not to intentionally catfish people into coming out to you (what a sentence).

I think I want to hate this book more than I actually do. Like I said, it got my flinty little heart to throw off a spark or two. But, as I hope is evident, it also annoyed me too much to rise to the heights of love-hate, so final comment remains a resounding: eh.

#on a scale of 1 to 10 how badly does it reflect on this book that the only prominent female characters #are quirky cardboard and toxic goth cardboard respectively #will grayson will grayson #john green #david levithan #my flex is that i can spell his name without triple checking with google #dante's discard pile