Having enjoyed John Green’s YA novels Looking for Alaska & Paper Towns, and loved David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary, I had pretty high hopes for this novel, and it really didn’t disappoint.

Green and Levithan both take a different Will Grayson, and the novel is told in alternate perspectives in each chapter. John Green’s Will Grayson is pretty much the generic John Green male lead character-slightly nerdy, quite attractive and a little socially awkward-but Green does that kind of character very well; yet I am looking forward to The Fault in Our Stars which will be narrated by a girl. However, having a vaguely generic lead is the fact that we get some really exciting secondary characters; most especially Tiny Cooper the larger-than-life, out and proud best friend of Will Grayson. On the flip side, Levithan’s Will Grayson is in the closet, suffers from depression and is pretty much friendless. Indeed, his side of the story is even set in lower case letters. Levithan does a wonderful job of capturing depression, without sinking into angst-ridden cliche.

It’s truly a novel that makes you ridiculously happy and laugh out loud at some moments, and then get a real lump in your throat-both with gut-wrenching sadness or real happiness. I really recommend this.