Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010) is John Green's second co-authored work, and by far the worst of his that I have read. 

There are two teens named Will Grayson in Chicago. The first (whose chapters are written by Green) is attractive, positive, and smart and has two sidekicks: Tiny, a big, openly gay guy, and Jane, a possibly gay girl. The second Will (written by David Levithan) is depressed, sensitive, and also gay but has barely any friends. The two Wills eventually meet, their lives become intertwined and they become friends. 

The idea of two teens with the same name meeting each other is certainly original. However, some of the plot details were not. Take WG#1's only friends, Tiny and Jane, who make him unpopular by association. Wow! This sounds exactly like the situation of Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) from Tina Fey's Mean Girls. In my past readings of John Green, his story details seemed much more authentic.

Besides the familiar plot, there are many other issues with the novel. To start, there is way too much detail -- weird, irrelevant anecdotes and symbolic life lessons from both authors did nothing for me or the plot. Speaking of the plot, there was so little of it that, by the end of this weak co-production, there were no distinct changes in either of the Wills. In any case, both of them were so dull that I didn't care. The worst was yet to come, though. Even though this is a novel, most of the details were realistic enough, except for the forced ending. I won't spoil it for you, but it certainly felt out of sync with the rest of the novel because it was so ridiculous.

I've read both good and bad from John Green, but this was by far his worst. I give this book one star out of five. Needless to say, it is going to be a while before I pick up another John Green to read. 

Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

Sweet Thursday (1954) is John Steinbeck's sequel to 1945's Cannery Row (previously reviewed here).

Sweet Thursday tells what happens in Cannery Row after WWII: Doc returns from serving in the war; Fauna takes over Dora's Bear Flag Restaurant; Mack and the Boys still live in the Palace Flophouse; Lee Chong has left; and Suzy, a new character, moves in to the Row. Like Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday details the intersections of the lives of these and other characters. 

Because I throughly enjoyed Cannery Row, I had high hopes for Sweet Thursday. However, many of the elements that distinguished Cannery Row were not present here. These included the gorgeous descriptions of the coast and of the town itself. In Sweet Thursday, the evocative descriptions were fewer and less magical. Sweet Thursday's minor character plot lines were also less interesting and less developed than Cannery Row's.

I was happy that the plot still focused on Doc, because he is one of Steinbeck's most interesting characters. Doc remains honest, helpful, friendly, and, of course, likable in Sweet Thursday. I was disappointed, though, that Steinbeck left many loose ends in Doc's story. After I'm introduced to a great character,  I want to know what happens to them. 

With few exceptions (like Toy Story 2 and The Godfather Part II), the original is better than the sequel and that is also true with Cannery Row. I rate Sweet Thursday three out of five stars, because it lacks many of the elements that made Cannery Row so perfect.