Book Review: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Title: Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

Author: Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult

Published: 5th October 2012 by MIRA Ink

Format Read: eBook, 274 pages

Synopsis: “‘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?
Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story that will have readers perusing bookstore shelves, looking and longing for a love (and a red notebook) of their own.” (Taken from Goodreads)

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This book sounded like a quick and sweet read amidst my stack of assessments, and essentially it was. It captures the magic of Christmas, and first romance for two New York teenagers whose parents conveniently are away, leaving them alone or with relatives during December. Dash and Lily starts off quite well, with alternate perspectives each chapter showing the shenanigans each teenager gets up to during that day. The novel opens up with Dash discovering a red moleskin notebook on a shelf in his bookstore, daring him to play away. And so begins the journey of how these two characters traipses through New York in order to fulfill each others dares.

Aside from my own thoughts that this whole idea is totally weird (I for one wouldn’t be going along with weird as dares like crossing the bridge to Brooklyn because someone had told me to…), it was a very light-hearted novel that engages with the season of festivities. The Christmas spirit was definitely there, and would have been a fun read during that time … except it’s September right now and I live in Australia. The writing style was good, and I enjoyed reading both Dash and Lily’s thoughts, but I must say that I looked forward to Dash’s chapters more than Lily’s. I found Lily to be a little insufferable at times, her personality and I just didn’t mesh well together. For a sixteen year old girl, she seemed to act more like a six year old to me.

Dash on the other hand behaved just like a teenage boy should have. His love of words had me grinning along, wishing I could have met a boy like this when I was still in high school. Now while I wouldn’t say that any of the dares were to my taste at all, the plot of the book was essentially based around it, so I gave them a little leniency. What I found odd however, was Lily’s relatives and their indifference to playing along. Did they have nothing better to do during the busiest season of the year? If I had asked my relatives to play along while I dared a boy I’d never met to reach into my uncles Santa suit, I’m pretty sure I’d be receiving a lot of odd looks for the next ten years.

Overall, this book was cute and the romance was okay, but definitely expected more from it. If you’re looking for a quick Christmas themed read in December, pick it up and give it a go. It wasn’t horrible, and it wasn’t amazing. But I did finish it so it wasn’t all that bad!

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Joy

Joy is the head honcho of Thoughts By J. Her favourite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, mysteries, and the occasional romance that makes her heart beat faster. You'll find she's quite sporadic with her blog posts, but will definitely find the time to reply to all your comments, and visit your blogs...it's just a matter of when.