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

At the urge of her lucky-in-love brother, sixteen-year-old Lily has left a red notebook full of dares on her favourite bookshop shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept.

Curious, snarly Dash isn't one to back down from a challenge - and the Book of Dares is the perfect thing to keep him occupied this Christmas. 

As they send each other on a snowbound scavenger hunt across Manhattan, they're falling for each other on paper. But finding out if their real selves share their on-page chemistry could be their biggest dare yet.

Star Rating

I bought this book from my local charity bookstore and, although I didn't hate it, I wasn't overwhelmed! This is a short, sweet story about two teenagers who fall for each other on paper, conversing through the pages of a red notebook. The novel starts in a bookshop , a clever setting to draw in all the book lovers out there. The setting then branches out to Christmas time New York and, although I have never been there myself, there were many references to some of the amazing places my friends and family have been, for example the Muppet WhatNot Workshop at FAO Schwarz. I have always wanted to visit New York at Christmas time (mainly due to Macaulay Culkin) and I enjoyed reading about the different places the teens visited. 

The story started out well with some extremely funny first few chapters. Unfortunately this humour seemed to peter out towards the middle of the book as we focused more on the growing relationship between Lily and Dash. The 'dares' mentioned in the blurb were more random trips to a variety of locations and I found myself willing the teenagers to finally meet as my interest dwindled. 

There is no doubt that some people will love the characters in this book and some will hate them. Lily, although seemingly quick witted and funny at the beginning of the story, quickly became irritating and made ridiculously bad decisions along the way. 

With some adaptations, this story would make a cute Christmas film for teens.