Tears of a Tiger

Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper in summary: One of the most depressing books I've ever read in my life. This book was recommend to me by someone who read this in high school and I honestly can't believe this was part of her curriculum. Tears of a Tiger is about some high school kid getting drunk and killing his friend in a car crash. I kept reading this book thinking it was going to get better but upon finishing this book, it ruined my entire day. Way to go, Sharon M. Draper.

The main character in this story is Andy. Him and his friends are super stereotypical athletic types who play basketball and think it's a great idea to drink and drive. Especially Andy, who was behind the wheel the night of the accident. Characterization wasn't that great. So after watching his friend burn to death in a car after an accident, Andy and his friends "could not find any meaning to their life after the accident."

A month after the accident, Andy goes to a psychologist but has trouble talking to him very openly about what he had done. After a few more sessions, Andy begins to open up and then convinces his psychologist that he can "handle his own problems" and that he's "better now." And when you're reading it, you actually believe it and think this book is a really good example of getting help after a traumatic experience without turning to substance abuse (that's what I was thinking, anyway), but no. After Andy breaks up with his girlfriend, he kills himself the next day. So it wasn't the murder of his best friend that really got him, it was the lost of his girlfriend.

You could argue that Andy was still really mentally unstable and his girlfriend just pushed him over the edge. And that was sort of the case, but the author tricks you into thinking that Andy really is learning how to cope with what he had done and Andy seemed happy for a while. And then he shoots himself. What made it even worse was that Andy's little brother saw Andy's blood leaking through the living room ceiling downstairs. Sweet.

This was just a vile story that I would not recommend to anyone. This book is a part of a trilogy. That's so messed up.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Once I figured out what was going on, I love the style of writing this book has. It may be benefical to note the fact that there are two Will Graysons each telling their story (hence the title), something I didn't realize until halfway through the darn thing. Duh. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is co-written by two of my favorite authors, John Green and David Levithan. Green's character, Will Grayson, has the same name as Levithan's character. To keep the characters seperate, they have different chapters and Levithan's character uses all lower case letters and even writes his own name as "will grayson."

The first Will Grayson is a confused teenager whose rules are 1. Don't care too much and 2. Shut up. He tries to get through life as removed as possible. His best friend, ironnically named "Tiny," breaks both of these rules. Will sums up tiny as "Not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay and the world's gayest person who is really, really large." Will suffers typical teen angst and his best friend really doesn't get it.

The second will grayson is angry about everything all the time. He's not even sure why. Both boys struggle with relationships self-acceptance. But this changes when they end up meeting each other and going to Tiny's highschool play, which is the major turning point in the story.

This book is one of my favorites becauase both authors go into depth about relationships in each teen's life, friendship, self-identity, acceptance, and love. You can relate to at least a few aspects of each character in the book, and I really think it's worth the read.