Sam Reviews "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by John Green and David Levithan

I'd like to start by saying that I've always been a harsh critic of young adult books, even when I was the target reading age.  So, my personal review and opinion of this books is as follows:  it wasn't bad.  There was a serious "cheese factor" when it came to Tiny Cooper.  Some of his quirks I could appreciate but a lot of his quirks were over the top and (in my opinion) unrealistic.  I didn't feel the issues tackled in this book were especially serious or life altering.  And, despite my love of musicals, I didn't see the "genius" in the book's showcased musical, which was disappointing.  I do feel teenagers will appreciate this more than I do, as I tend to prefer books with more mature themes.  This just kind of seemed like a little snippet out of two people's diaries.  It wasn't especially moving or educational, it was just a nice story.

The opening quote, "You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose" is from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - unless it's a really old quote I just heard on the show first. 

"I feel bad for her - I do. A damn shame, really, that I had to have a mother. It can't be easy having me for a son. Nothing can prepare someone for that kind of disappointment." 

"I don't know if there's anything more horrifying than a goth girl getting all cuddly." 

"I don't even picture it.   Instead I'm in it. How I would feel with him here. That peace. It would be so happy, and it makes me sad because it only exists in words." 

"He is both the source of my happiness and the one I want to share it with." 

"You know how people are always saying your parents are always right?  "Follow your parents' advice; they know what's good for you."  And you know how no one ever listens to this advice, because even if it's true it's so annoying and condescending that it just makes you want to go, like, develop a meth addiction and have unprotected sex with eighty- seven thousand anonymous partners?  Well, I listen to my parents. They know what's good for me. I'll listen to anyone, frankly.  Almost everyone knows better than I do." 

"In the ensuing silence, I have the time to contemplate the word cute - how dismissive it is, how it's the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading "Feel Bad About Yourself"."

"Anything that happens all at once is just as likely to unhappen all at once." 

"Since they are theater people, they are all talking. All of them. Simultaneously. They do not need to be heard; they only need to be speaking." 

"I don't just feel depressed - instead, it is like the depression is the core of me, of every part of me, from my mind to my bones. If he got blue, I got black. That I hate those pills so much, because I know how much I rely on them to live. No, I couldn't say any of this. Because, when it comes down to it, nobody wants to hear it. No matter how much they like you or love you, they don't want to hear it." 

"Your mom and I had dinner with the Porters on their yacht years ago, and in the span of a single meal - in that two hours - the boat went from feeling like the most extraordinarily luxurious experience to just being a boat. You're our yacht, bud. All that money that would have gone into a yacht, all that time we would have spent traveling the world?  Instead, we got you. It turns out that the yacht is a boat. But you - you can't be bought on credit." 

"Such is life. We grow up. Planets like Tiny get new moons. Moons like me get new planets." 

"If you try to ruin someone's life, it only gets better. You just don't get to be a part of it." 

"Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?" 

"I am going to stay the same, and the same, and the same, until I die of it." 

"I'm not saying I'm innocent. I'm saying you're guilty too." 

"...When did who you want to screw become the whole game?  Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? ... Who even gives a fuck about sex?!  People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. ... You know what's important?  Who would you die for?  Who would you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you?..."

"Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are." 

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."  - Oscar Wilde

"The pure and simple truth, is rarely pure and never simple. What's a boy to do, when lies and truth are both sinful."

"That's it - hundreds of texts and conversations, thousands upon thousands of words spoken and sent, all boiled down into a single line. Is that what relationships become?  A reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in."

"We acknowledge that being the person God made you cannot separate you from God's love." 

"In some ways, you are who you are because other people observe you; but in some ways, you are who you are in spite of other people's observations of you."