Another "Objectionable" Book

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

By John Green & David Levithan

Audiobook 8 hrs

Copyright 2011

YA, ages 14 & up

One thing the folks who are objecting to homosexual books in the local library have done is to get me to read books I otherwise would have overlooked. I don't read a lot of YA unless it's fantasy.

This book was one of the books they challenged, and when it came up as available while I was skimming for something new to listen to, I chose it.

It's not great literature, but I also didn't find anything objectionable about it. There were curse words, and yes, young men fell in love, they masturbated, they kissed. I was more upset with the fat shaming in the book than I was with anything else. One of the main characters, Tiny, is a huge overweight fellow and his size is commented on frequently. He is also a flamboyant homosexual who writes a play.

I found the book rather sweet in that most of the youth were accepting of these characters (some were not, but they weren't overly hateful), and it had a rather unrealistic but loving ending. If only people really were so accepting of one another.

In this story, two young men are both named Will Grayson. They do not know each other but eventually meet. They are quite different people. One Will Grayson is Tiny's best friend; later, the other Will Grayson becomes Tiny's boyfriend, though not for very long.

 

The story revolves around the growing up of these young men and how they handle themselves and deal with those around them. Neither is a jock, class clown, or superstar, but Will (1) has a better grasp on himself, his life, and his family than the other. He comes from an upper middle-class family. Will (2) lives with his mother and suffers from depression. The family is not poor but not middle class, either. He has no friends except for a person he has met online and a girl he doesn't want to talk to.

When Will (2) ventures into Chicago to meet his online friend, he instead meets Will (1) and discovers his cyber friend is not who he claimed to be. 

Throughout the story, Tiny's efforts to write a musical play and stage it forms a backdrop. The play is about love and acceptance.

Since I listened to this instead of reading it, I can't address issues I saw in some of the Amazon reviews about sentence grammar and such. I know there is a lot of instant messaging, chatroom talk, and emails in the book, which at times were hard to follow while I was listening. On the page they may not be so bad. I cannot address that aside from noting that it didn't take away from the story.

I do not set out to read books about homosexuality. It is not my thing. However, I also do not find it distasteful, sinful, abhorrent or anything else. What people do is their own business, and these books serve as an introduction to a lifestyle with which I am not familiar. They have, if anything, made me more aware of what the folks are dealing with and going through, and have made me more empathetic towards them. 

More accepting, even.

Maybe that's what the objection is: some people don't want others to be accepted.