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.