On Letting The Outsiders In: Will Grayson, Will Grayson and the Lonely Work of Individuation in Young Adult Literature

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.