Sushannah Smith | Staff Writer
Featured image: Will Grayson, Will Grayson is an atypical alternative to YA love stories. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Some novels stress over themes of the forgotten: forgotten people, forgotten objects, forgotten places and forgotten memories. However, there’s one forgotten thing some believe should stay in the past: feelings. Forgotten feelings are usually forgotten for a reason.
But let’s try to remember a simpler time: 2010. David Levithan, known for his young adult novel Boy Meets Boy, and John Green of the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers and author of novels such as Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, put their creative minds to the test with Will Grayson, Will Grayson. The novel doesn’t focus on feelings that readers wish they can forget, but encourages them to bring back moments they wish they could remember.
The concept behind Will Grayson, Will Grayson is unique; the novel is divided between two alternating male perspectives, both named Will Grayson. Green is entirely responsible for one Will and Levithan for another, cleverly playing with name expectations and associations as readers move between chapters.
The story is about love, but not in the way you would be led on to thinking. It is a story about platonic love and romantic love, heterosexuality and homosexuality. Having the two Graysons go through different experiences, with different sexual preferences, adds to the dimension of romantic novels like Will Grayson, Will Grayson. This isn’t simply a heterosexual coming of age novel.
Though Will and will, distinguished in the novel by the capitalization of one of the names, share the same name, they live in completely different worlds, but with some similar personalities. One is a quiet, straight male who tries to remain hidden in the shadows, but finds it hard to do so when he surrounds himself with his best friend, who is just as flamboyant as he is physically magnificent. It also doesn’t help that his large-and-in-charge best friend, ironically nicknamed Tiny, is creating, writing and producing the school musical and wants nothing more in the world than to have his best friend be a part of the action.
The second Will Grayson is a quiet and shy homosexual male who doesn’t feel like he has a purpose in his small suburban town in Chicago. The only person he feels a connection to is his internet pen pal Isaac.
Then suddenly, one day in an adult film store, the two Graysons meet and their lives turn around. Their meeting is an impossibility, like two lines running parallel to one another, yet they somehow cross paths. It serves as a reminder that though the world of novels may be highly constructed and deliberate, the real world isn’t. Love stories don’t happen in real life as magical unfoldings, but they can be spontaneous and absurd, like two Will Graysons meeting one another.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson may not be the typical love story that readers are looking for, but it still hits that romantic spot. It does more by reminding young people to cherish their friends and families. Romantic interests may come and go, but real friendships and family last longer than Facebook relationship updates or Instagram bios.
