Monday 16 February 2015

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

300th post!!! What a milestone - it feels like only yesterday that I started this blog, but it was in fact just over 3 years ago. Boy has it flown by. Here's to the next 300 posts and 3 years ...

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (2011) (MIRA Ink)
Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Grade: C+
Genre: young adult
Source: own / NetGalley
TBR RBC 2015: A NetGalley title 

When Dash leads his separated parents to believe that he’ll be spending Christmas with the other, they each plan holidays with their new partners and leave Dash to his own devices in New York City. He despises Christmas, but when he finds a notebook in his favourite bookshop filled with clues and dares left by a stranger, this is the perfect thing to keep him occupied. The notebook is Lily’s project, as directed by her brother, in a bid to keep her busy while their parents take a second honeymoon in Fiji over Christmas. As the pair lead each other in a scavenger’s hunt over New York, recruiting friends and relatives to help keep their identities secret in the process, they begin falling for each other on paper. Meeting in person will be their biggest dare yet …



Unfortunately, this is one of those books that I expected to like a lot more than was actually the case. Don’t get me wrong: the two POVs were entertaining and Rachel Cohn and David Levithan make a great writing team. The tasks that Dash and Lily set each other were funny and daring and it was great to discover each character’s personality as they did. To be honest, the first half of the book where they hadn’t met was more exciting than when they did meet. The mystery surrounding their anonymity was the real driver in this book and once that bubble had been burst, a lot of the fun was lost. Still, it was good while it lasted.

This is another book that’s joining the growing stack of books that I’ll be getting rid of; this time, David Levithan and Rachel Cohn didn’t deliver as well as they have done in the past. Further, it’s also joining the growing list of young adult books that I’ve read in 2015 and not enjoyed as much as I expected to, when I first bought the book. Perhaps this is an indication that I’m growing out of young adult, but I’m inclined to disagree as there have still been a few young adult books that I’ve read in the past six weeks and loved – Sweethearts and We Were Liars come to mind. Maybe I’ve just become pickier in general and to be honest, the statistics back it up: of the 20 books I’ve already read this year, I’ve only really loved 5 of them – a depressing statistic in my books. Fingers crossed that this figure increases over the course of the year, but I’ll definitely be trying to find Dash & Lily a new home where it’ll be loved as much as it should be.

Image courtesy of Fantastic Fiction.


 

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