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On Letting The Outsiders In: Will Grayson, Will Grayson and the Lonely Work of Individuation in Young Adult Literature
- Children's Literature Association Quarterly
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 44, Number 1, Spring 2019
- pp. 67-87
- 10.1353/chq.2019.0004
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
In Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-authors John Green and David Levithan at once stage and refuse an adherence to the long-standing youthful outsider trope in young adult fiction. By employing a multivocal narrative mode that doesn’t rest with an individual protagonist and offering a metafictional commentary on adolescent growth through Tiny Cooper’s autobiographical play, the authors dramatize a movement toward solidarity and invite the reader to question the commonly held assumption that individuation necessitates detachment.