Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Thursday, February 10, 2011


Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
★★★★☆

Last year I read and really enjoyed “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” by the same two authors. So when everyone and their brother started reviewing this one around the blogosphere I had to check it out.

Dash is wandering around The Strand (awesome NYC bookstore) when he finds a red notebook filled with instructions. The notebook is written by Lily and though they’ve never met before, they begin corresponding and daring each other to do things.

I loved the story and the rapid-fire dialogue and snarky comments. It’s a fun, quick read and I’m officially a fan of Levithan’s writing.

There’s one particularly funny exchange between Dash and Lily’s aunt about what kind of tea is best. It was moments like those, where Levithan’s wit shines the most. Here’s Dash’s comment about green tea…

“You can’t be serious. Because you know when a cow chews grass? Well, green tea tastes like French-kissing that cow after it’s done chewing all that grass.”

I definitely enjoyed Dash’s sections more than Lily’s, because I think I just connected more with his character. Lily is much more sensitive and fragile, almost childlike in her expectations and ability to control emotion. Dash on the other hand, is cynical and pessimistic.

I did have one complaint, though it may sound petty. In one of Lily’s section (p. 77) she makes a reference to someone who is dressed like Hermione Potter. Obviously she meant to say Hermione Granger, but still it irritated me.

“I preferred to hangout with the dead, dying or desperate books – used we call them, in a way that we’d never call a person, unless we meant it cruelly.”

“I figured being a bed salesman was a job of biblically bad paradox. I mean, here he was forced to stand for 8 or 9 hours a day, and the whole time he’s surrounded by beds.”

“Children frighten me. I mean I appreciate them on a cute aesthetic level, but they’re very demanding and unreasonable creatures and often smell funny.”

10 comments:

Ana S. said...

Eep - I didn't notice the Hermione thing! The green tea thing made me laugh as well, even though I LIKE green tea :P

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

The Hermione thing seems like such a silly little thing, I don't know why it bugged me.

Jenners said...

The Hermione thing would bother me too. I mean, they didn't ever marry!!! DUH!!!

And I've heard good things about this. Like the green tea description. I think it is tough when it is a "co-authored" book and one of the authors stands out from the other.

Lilly said...

I LOVE that green tea comment! This sounds like a good one, put it on my list. Love, Kate

nomadreader said...

I really want to read this one. I enjoyed Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, but I also recently read The Lover's Dictionary and absolutely adored it!

kay - Infinite Shelf said...

I love the quotes you picked. I remember reading the bed one and really liking it! :)

Alex (The Sleepless Reader) said...

Sounds like a cool book! The Hermione thing would also be a pebble in my shoe (as we say back home).

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Jenners - Apparently the two authors knew nothing about what the other one was writing. One would write a chapter, e-mail it to the other, then they would write the next chapter, etc. It works for this particular book, but I think that would be hard to do.

Carrie - The Lover's Dictionary is one my list!

Kay/Lilly - There are some great lines in this book.

Bittner said...

My name is Courtney and I'm a new follower. I just started reading Dash and Lily, and last night I got to the "Hermione Potter" line and was like "Wait...what?" So when I got to work this morning I googled it and your blog was the first thing that came up!

The Hermione line bothered me because at first I thought maybe she was a character who was supposed to have never seen Harry Potter and was being sarcastic. But then Lily says that she was always jealous of Hermione for hanging out with Harry and kissing Ron. So yeah it kind of bothers me. Not so much that it is going to taint the whole book for me but still a little irksome.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Courtney - So glad you stumbled upon my blog. I'm glad I wasn't the only one that got hung up on that minor flaw.