Book Nerds Across America

Book Summary
It’s Tiny Cooper’s turn in the spotlight in this companion novel to New York Times bestseller Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
 
Jazz hands at the ready! Tiny Cooper (“the world’s largest person who is also really, really gay”) stole readers’ hearts when he was introduced to the world in the New York Times bestselling book Will Grayson, Will Grayson,co-authored by John Green and David Levithan. Now Tiny finally gets to tell his story—from his fabulous birth and childhood to his quest for true love and his infamous parade of ex-boyfriends—the way he always intended: as a musical! Filled with honesty, humor, and “big, lively, belty” musical numbers, the novel is told through the full script of the musical first introduced in Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Flo's Review
Let the gushing begin! I have so much love for this book. So. Much. Love. It doesn't come as a surprise, because I absolutely loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Tiny was one of my favorite characters. So I was over-the-moon excited to find out the was getting his own book. (Note: I'm allowed to be almost overly dramatic in this review, because not only is it about a musical, it's about Tiny Cooper.) I started this knowing that it would make me chuckle and smile. It did both of those things. Mainly, I just wanted to be Tiny Cooper's BFF. I mean, Will Grayson is Tiny Cooper's BFF, but I want to be his BFF, too.

But then the more I read, the more other emotions surfaced. Everything hurt when I read the scenes about his relationship with (the other) Will Grayson. Tiny is an open book, so I knew everything he was feeling from reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but I forgot just how poignant it all was. This musical is full of fun, but it's also kind of deep. There are some great lessons from Lynda and the Ghost of Oscar Wilde. And Tiny, too, has some great, great insight that he includes in his stage directions. 

If you read and loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson, pick this book up immediately. It will remind you of everything you loved. If you haven't read Will Grayson, Will Grayson then I -- as stage director of this blog post -- instruct you to go get a hold of this book stat.

5 very enthusiastic sparkly stars!!

I love me some David Levithan. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is one of the best books out there, in my opinion. I loved Every Day, and Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. The Lover's Dictionary follows suit with what I love about David Levithan -- the creativity and uniqueness in his stories. I have been following @loversdiction on Twitter for quite awhile, and I love seeing the periodic posts, which, according to the account profile, "are not from the book, but tease to it."

So I found myself with a flight and a copy The Lover's Dictionary, and I expected to think it was the cutest, neatest thing ever. And it wasn't bad. It IS cute. It IS unique. For those of you who don't know, it's a love story composed of dictionary entries. So it starts with "aberrant" and goes all the way through "zenith," and tells a story throughout.

My only problem with it was that it was too long. I know this is weird to say for a book that is so physically tiny. I do think it's a cute concept, but I could only make it through to "commonplace" before I started to get bored. Perhaps if there was only one entry per letter, I would like it more and really enjoy the concept. But the multiple words per letter make what should be a cute, short novella a little bit too long.

But I'm pretty sure the Twitter account will continue to make me smile.

To celebrate the 8 days of Hanukkah, the four book nerds will each select an author or book series that is meaningful to us to share with all of you.

Today I am going to talk briefly about an AMAZING author who I just discovered in 2012...

Flo's Review

Every once in awhile I find in my mailbox a Surprise ARC. I don't think the majority of them are really surprises because I enter a lot of contests. But then I forget I enter them, so when the book shows up in my mailbox -- SURPRISE!

This is how I came upon Every Day by David Levithan. I loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, so when I found myself looking at another one of his books, I was super excited.

The book starts with a letter to the reader. I am not sure if that is just an ARC thing or if the letter is really in the book, but I hope it's really in the book. Basically, it's David talking about how the idea for Every Day came about. My favorite part about this is that he started with the premise:

"I had the premise: Since birth, a teen has woken up every day in the boy and life of a new person. But after that I didn't have any answers, only questions." He goes on to ask some of the questions that could come to anyone's mind given this premise then says, "I didn't have the answers to these questions. So I wrote a novel to try to find out what they were. And now you hold that novel in your hand."

Like Dash and Lily, I shoved this book in my purse at the last minute as I was packing for a trip, because I needed something for when I couldn't have my Nook on. Also like Dash and Lily, I ended up not turning on the Nook once the airplane reached cruising altitude and electronic devices were approved because I was so engrossed in the story. I had just come turned off my Nook where I was at the beginning of a book and there was a lot of scene setting going on...I wasn't feeling it. I even tweeted that I wished I was at the part at that book where I was engrossed already. Well, when I picked up Every Day, I was immediately engrossed. Because it starts like a "normal" day for A, the main character -- like every day. Except, this first day we read about is NOT like every day. This first day changes the routine A had become used to and causes him for the first time to really want a sense of permanency about his life.

Every Day is one of those books that casually throws deep thoughts at you. Like, if you are speed reading you may miss them. Like if you are eating just to eat. But if you are eating to savor the flavor of the food, you  will catch and ponder on these morsels of life lessons and observations. I loved that.

I felt that the concept of this story was so unique -- it was unlike anything I had ever read before, and so I fell into A's world -- his thoughts, feelings, sensations, and it was all completely new. Just like for him -- every day was different -- for the reader, too, every day was new and unparalleled. Issues such as obesity, suicidal tendencies, homosexuality, child labor, are all covered, but not in a preachy kind of way -- they are just different colored threads in the multi-colored fabric of A's life, and in parallel, in our lives.

This is the longest review I have written in awhile, and I could just go on and on. If you are the least bit intrigued, I definitely encourage you to pick up Every Day.

And, at this rate, I may be adding David Levithan to this list.