READING : Dash&Lily's Book Of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Dash&Lily's Book Of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan


Publication date: October 26th, 2010
Published by: Knopf Books For Young Readers
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 4/5

“I’ve left some clues for you.

If you want them, turn the page.

If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”

So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the New York Times bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

Dash&Lily's story is a dream come true for every girl and boy-teenager or not.Girl leaves a notebook with clues at the infamous Strand bookstore in NY, boy finds it and an adventure unravels.Wrap it all with a  red velvet Christmas ribbon,and you have yourselves a fine holiday romance!

Dash&Lily's narrative is split between two POVs: that of Lily and Dash. Cohn wrote the Lily parts and Levithan the Dash parts.Lily is a very good,obedient,almost dorky girl, who finds herself,for the first time in her life,completely alone during Christmas holidays,seeking for something to fill the emptiness she didn't know she had.She has a loving and caring family, but she has recently discovered that something is missing from her life.Despite the fact that Lily was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, she overreacted to a lot of things and situations, she was a brave and resourceful girl.Overall a likeable character.  Dash,I believe,was the complete opposite of Lily.Not that he wasn't brave and outspoken, quite the opposite.The thing is that he was too much of it.Too much of everything, in my opinion. Levithan's writing of Dash was very eloquent and sophisticated.Which is not by itself bad, but it got to a point that you just couldn't connect with him.It's not believable for a boy in his teens to use such refined words and read poetry and wear fedora hats.At least not to me. Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong crowd when I was a teen, I don't know.But he couldn't help but sound like a middle aged college professor at times and it put me off a little bit. It took away from the mystique and the romantic atmosphere that I guess the book was after.
Writing aside, I have to give a lot of credit to the uniqueness of the story.As soon as a read the blurb on the back, I knew I had to read this book!Finding love during Christmas, in NY, under the most mysterious and intriguing circumstances?I mean,who wouldn't want to experience something like that? And believe me,if I wasn't broke at the moment,I would book  tickets to NY right now, just for the chance to stand outside of the Strand, which just sounds paradise on earth to me!

I don't know if Dash and Lily were meant to be together.To be honest, I doubt it.But everything is in the trying, in taking risks and eventually, that little step forward. And even if you get hurt in the end, at least you will have enjoyed the journey!