Prelude: When I drive to our cabin that is 3 1/2 hours away I love to listen to audio. This past weekend with my now graduated from College son, we listened to Will Grayson Will Grayson. When I tell my son we will listen to audio he eye rolls but appeases me. I… do not want to be appeased. I… want him to love audio too. And this is how it happened… ~Sheila
Will Grayson is 16 years old and has a best friend named Tiny Cooper. Tiny… is anything but. Tiny is humongous and his heart is just as big as he is. Tiny is gay – Will is not. Will takes a lot of crap for having a larger than life best friend who is gay but Will just puts his head down and plods on as each class brings him closer to the end of the school day where he can go home and get away from the drama that is high school.
When Will meets Jane, a girl he may or may not like… things become interesting. Jane is part of the Gay/Straight Alliance in their school and Will is not sure which one of those heading she falls under but she seems to like him. Perhaps… life just became a little more interesting.
Will Grayson is 16 and has fallen for a guy he met on-line named Isaac. Isaac. What a great name… but this is not the Will Grayson who is best friends with Tiny Cooper. No… this is another Will Grayson, or soon to become known as OWG (other Will Grayson)…
and things are about to get interesting.
Alright alright – it is honestly really hard to describe this book and why I love it so much. It has the untethered bound of John Green’s wit. It has the incredible narration of David Levithan that makes me laugh out loud as the guy is simply brilliant as he makes his way through this book with fantastic voices and occasionally breaking out into song. Yes song. Tiny is writing a musical… but that – is another part of the story.
I adored this audio when I listened to it in 2012 immediately following listening to Fault In Our Stars for the first time. Same author – John Green, in case you did not catch that. I was basking in Green. Literally and I wanted to share his incredible writing and audio with the world. Listening to it again two years later I fell in love with this story again.
So the verdict with my son? I gave him full veto rights to tell me to stop the audio and I would with no arguing or sideways glares as we drove. Instead – he enjoyed it too and so much in fact when we arrived back home on Monday he downloaded Audible to his phone so he could finish listening to it on his way home to the cities.
I promised him I would not gloat… but…
mission achieved 🙂
If you have not treated yourself to the amazing narration of David Levithan I highly encourage you to give him a try. If you have not listened to a John Green audiobook woo! You are missing a great level to his writing. I highly recommend Will Grayson Will Grayson on book or audio. Some day I want to read this one… I bet it is FABULOUS!
Book Journey 
Sounds like audio is the way to go for this one!
I adore John Green’s audio 🙂
I’ve never listed to an audio book but I actually won this one when it came out. I’ve been meaning to get to it but somehow it never happened. I must correct this.
OOH I hope you love it like I did!
Okay, I’m still not a fan of audio, but I have READ The Fault in Our Stars…and downloaded Paper Towns to Sparky, still unread. I’m glad you and your eye-rolling son enjoyed the listen.
Paper Towns is good to Laurel 🙂 (On audio) 😛
I just finished listening to this audiobook and loved it! I didn’t know that David Levithan was the narrator! I picked up this book specifically because it had his name on the cover and I’m a fan of his books – what a bonus that he reads it and sings for us too! I’ll have to listen to some of John Green’s books now! Great post 🙂
Thanks! I have listened to all of John Greens books on audio. Funny thing though – then I reviewed this book on audio two years ago I had a different narrator listed.
I bet this one would be great on audio. I’ve always wondered if John Green’s books would hold up on a 2nd reading, but it sounds like it does!!!
This is my second time around with this one and I have listened to and read Fault In Our Stars three times so I would say yes. 😀
Sounds interesting…
Its a fun one!
This one sounds great! I’ve only read two Green novels so far and would love to read this one. And the audio sounds great!
Mostly, though, I am SO impressed that you got your son back into audio books. Mine are 20 and 16 and refuse to listen to them with us anymore 😦 The 16-year old wants to listen to his own music on his own iPod and the 20-year old says audio books are too slow and he’d rather read on his own (lucky boy can read all day in the car and never get sick).
You’ve given me hope! Maybe someday…
Sue
Book By Book
Justin was a “captive audience”….plus I promised him only twenty minutes and then he could call “veto” and that would be it 😀
I tried to listen to this on a long vacation drive, but my kids were too young — the language is too raw for the elementary and lower junior high crowd. So I waited until we were home and listened piecemeal while running errands. I think the songs make this an especially good choice for listening — you don’t get the full effect just reading it.
I agree… there is much to catch in this one and I can see where young ones might not relate to it.
So cool that you could share this book with your son!
It was fun!