Mini-Review: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Mini-reviews are where I write about books that I want to mention but am too lazy or too busy to write a full-length review for. I say what I thought about the book in 5 sentences then share a quote I liked from the book.

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. The GoodReads summary:

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?

I’m in love with this book--it’s so ridiculously much fun to follow Lily and Dash around New York at Christmas. I really enjoyed Lily and Dash. They’re a little more self-aware and articulate than real teenagers probably are, but they have their fair share of problems and self-doubt too; and though they don't always deal with their issues in the best ways, you don't doubt that they learn a little more about themselves from their mistakes. And I really love the narrative voices--Cohn and Levithan have created these characters that just talk and sound like the quirky, awesome people they are. I totally recommend reading this book during the holidays this year--in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m going to re-read it for Christmas.

The quote:

Imagine this:

You're in your favorite bookstore, scanning the shelves. You get to the section where a favorite author's books reside, and there, nestled in comfortably between the incredibly familiar spines sits a red notebook.

What do you do?

The choice, I think, is obvious:

You take down the red notebook and open it.

And then you do whatever it tells you to do.