Plays Well With Words
Remember the incredibly sweet scene in Boy Meets Boy when Paul makes a list of one hundred beautiful words, writes them on a scroll, and puts the scroll in Noah's locker? We have a feeling that's totally David Levithan's dream love note. After all, what could win the heart of an author whose day job is being an editor like a list of obscure words in the handwriting of his beloved? That's the fun thing about being an adult writing teen romance: you get to reimagine your adolescence as you wish it really happened.
Levithan (and, by extension, Paul) delights in word play, painting pictures like, "There is a roar through the stands as the quiz bowling team is announced. They come sprinting onto the court, rolling for pins while answering questions about Einstein's theory of relativity." (4.39)
See what he did there? Lots of schools have quiz bowl teams, in which students from competing schools answer academic questions, but Paul's school has the first quiz bowling team we've ever heard of. By turning a noun into a gerund, Levithan has created a striking visual for himself to play with.
Then there's the fact that Paul and Tony speak their own made-up language, in which "Hewipso faqua deef?" is a perfectly valid question, and "Tinsin rabblemonk titchticker" is a perfectly valid answer (6.30-31). It's safe to say that both the author and narrator delight in the infinite twists and turns of English syntax.