Audio Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

TITLE: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

AUTHORS: John Green and David Levithan

NARRATORS: MacLeod Andrews and Nick Podehl

PUBLISHER: Brilliance Audio

PUBLICATION DATE: 4/6/2010

FORMAT: Audio book

LENGTH: 7 hours and 52 minutes

SOURCE: Bought
MY RATING:

SUMMARY (FROM AUDIBLE): One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens--both named Will Grayson--are about to cross paths. As their worlds and lives collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most fabulous high school musical.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: I'm having a hard time getting on board the John Green train. Everyone seems to adore his books, and out of the four that I've read the only one that I've really enjoyed was The Fault in Our Stars. I was hoping to enjoy this one, but it was my least favorite so far. It took a little bit to get going and then about two hours into the audio, my interest was peaked, but I still never got really invested in the book. I think a lot of my dislike for this one had to do with the audio though. According to Audible, there are two narrators for this book, but when I was listening I didn't even know there was a difference. I actually remember thinking that I would have enjoyed hearing two different narrators so that I could more easily tell the two Will Graysons apart, and apparently there were two narrators all along.

There was a lot of back and forth dialog that had the names of who was speaking before every line and that was, honestly, annoying to listen to the narrator say the names over and over again. Also, the singing drove me nuts. It was so over the top and obnoxious, which I guess was part of that particular character's personality, but it just got on my nerves.

All of that being said, if you're thinking about picking this one up, I would say to check out the print version rather than the audio.