Baker's Dozen Challenge Book 12

I have completed my Wild Card for the Baker's Dozen challenge. I was driving out to The Boonies, NY (more on that in another post) when we hit a Wal-Mart for a bathroom break. In the interest stretching my legs before driving another few hours, I wandered around. I saw Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan and was so pleased to see a book about gay teens in a podunk Wal-Mart I bought it on the spot.

This shows the ever increasing popularity of these writers and that I can't be left unsupervised around books. I've read the ubiquitous The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan. I found both of them to have an excellent writing style and fantastic way with words.

Each writer took on a Will Grayson in this alternating first person narrative. John Green's Will Grayson was fairly standard but he had a strategy of shutting up and not caring I didn't totally understand. Nothing is supremely wrong in his life so what's with the 'tude? Despite that, I understood his desire to not care, not get attached, etc. so he was still a likable character. Plus Tiny Cooper is all sorts of fabulous in every way possible.

Levithan's Will Grayson was, to be blunt, a snarky, angry, emo punk. I'd have thrown in bitch but he was abandoned by his father an clinically depressed so his attitude made sense. Plus some of his observations were hilarious. I will forever remember his rant early in the book about how 'if you think a <  3 looks like a heart then clearly you've never see a scrotum.'

Each writer has an amazing way with words. I kept dog-earring pages (only tiny ones at the bottom. I'm too OCD for anything else.) so I could go back and make sure those quotes were on GoodReads. One of Levithan's gems was "Need is never a good basis for any relationship. It has to be much more than that," and Green had "I don't really want to be the costar in anyone's life," and "Love is the most common miracle."

I looked up several of the bands mentioned in the book. I listened to Neutral Milk Hotel and the Mr. T Experience. I swear I thought NMH was something Green got from a random band name generator. I got a more realistic sounding band name in that meme I did a few entries ago. It is incredibly well written and poetic. I absolutely recommend it.

1) Another World – Wild Cards edited by George R. R. Martin

2) Learned Something – Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin

3) Movie Book – The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

4) Graphic Novel – Fanboys vs. Zombies Vol. 1 by Sam Humphries

5) Dust – You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

6) Nonfiction – A Little F'ed Up by Julie Zeilinger

7) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (as read by Wil Wheaton)

8) Shorts – 20something Essays by 20something Writers

9) Fiction – The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison

10) Shiny – Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay

11) Retelling – Classics Mutilated edited by Jeff Connor

12) Wild Card – Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

13) The End –

Music: O, You Sinners by Eliza Rickman