kassiereadsbooks's Reviews (786)

There were some really fabulous parts about it. Truly. But I do think that I got my hopes up a bit too much. There were impossible standards to meet. And quite frankly, I think that David and John’s writing styles meshed really oddly. Not badly, but Levithan is a very lyrical writer and John’s style is fantastic descriptive prose. Levithan institutes some very intriguing conventions by never capitalizing anything in his chapters. Green's Will Grayson is an intensely relatable character with humorous inner dialogue. The character of Tiny Cooper makes the entire novel come full circle, even though I'm not actually sure if I like him. In actuality, I'd give the novel 3.5 out of 5, but that's not an option. There were a lot of things that were lovely and a few things that were lackluster. But I would rather read “Looking for Alaska”, “Paper Towns”, or “The Realm of Possibility” any day. However, there is no denying both authors are incredibly talented

If you know me as a reader then you know that there are few men I admire more in the literary world than David Levithan. He is an author that says more in 4 words than many people can say in 300 pages. He is a crafter of poetry and a wonderful linguist. Because I have so much faith in Levithan I never even considered the possibility that he would write a book that I didn't like. Never say never, I guess?

The concept of the novel is wonderful, there's no dispute there. The idea of writing contextually without a plan based off of photos from an outside party is genius, but the problem is that you can tell that the novel was written without a plan. The plot was messy, uncomfortable and in the end the characters were lackluster and one-dimensional. The story made me feel rather ill and in the end I was both underwhelmed and unsettled.

I would never discredit Levithan as an author, but this is not a novel that I particularly enjoyed.