Will Grayson, Will Grayson & Looking for Alaska - John Green

As you may have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a John Green binge recently as I’m just loving his writing. I thought I would combine my reviews for these two books into one post!

I started by reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and subsequently felt like the biggest banana going when I realised (only about 100 pages in!) that this book is in fact about two DIFFERENT people who are called Will Grayson. Here I was thinking this dude just had a few split personality issues. The book is co-authored by David Leuithan and each writer takes on the narration of one of the two Will Graysons.

When these two young men, who coincidentally share a name, cross paths in unusual circumstances, their lives intertwine and they end up each playing a part in the outcome of the story for the other. This novel is funny (hilarious at times), sarcastic and just so enjoyable.

The representation of sexuality (and the questioning of ones sexuality) is expertly handled by the authors, and the conflicted teenage mind once again is illustrated perfectly by John Green, who, as I said in a previous review, depicts raw and flawed characters. Who wants perfect protagonists anyway?!

• 

Looking for Alaska was John Green’s debut novel, and what a corker it is. Our protagonist Miles has a fascination with memorising the last words of famous people. He has just enrolled at a boarding school and is in the throes of teenage angst and finding himself amongst a whole school of other equally confused people.

He meets Alaska, an older girl who in his eyes is the epitome of cool - she has lots of sex, sells him cigarettes and produces hidden bottles of strawberry wine from the soil at the base of trees. He rapidly falls for Alaska, and she seems to like him too despite her insistence on loving her boyfriend.

Their friendship catapults him into the Great Perhaps, as she puts it, and the tragedy which ensues leaves him thoroughly lost and further from himself than he was when he began. This is a heartbreaking story which leaves your insides a little bruised when you’ve finished it.