appropriateness rating
Review:
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is one of those that makes you long for romance, and wish you had someone with whom you could pass back and forth a red moleskine notebook. Honestly, it makes everyone wish for something different, which is truly special. Some people might wish for someone who knows what the word “philatelist” means. Some people might wish for someone who loves to think, or to read. Some people might wish for someone who would choose lebkuchen over rice krispies.
But in the end, what really matters, is that it makes you wish. Makes you ponder and think, and draws you in so completely that when it’s over you wish there was more. You wish that you could follow Lily and Dash through their lives, wish to be as daring, as kind, as brave. But in the end, what it shows you is that, inevitably, wishing just doesn’t measure up.
Summary:
When Lily’s parents decide they are going to Fiji during Christmas, Lily is shocked and horrified. She may have said it would be okay with her… but that doesn’t mean it is! Her older brother Langston, proposes that in order to find herself a boyfriend, she go the conventional path and find the as-yet-found boyfriend through a notebook. She writes a series of Dares to the yet to be discovered boy, and supplies many dares some of which involve the books French Pianism, the Joys of Gay Sex, and Fat Hoochie Prom Queen. She had to choose unusual titles in order to scare off any boys who wouldn’t be worth dating.
Dash (short for Dashiell, as he will tell you), takes up Lily’s challenge. His ex-girlfriend, Sophia, has recently moved to Spain and while he never really liked Sophia so much, and certainly didn’t love her, he finds himself missing Sophia more than he would’ve expected. So Dash takes Lily’s notebook, and soon enough Lily and Dash find themselves daring each other into places they never would’ve expected to go.
If You Like: The Indigo Notebook, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (book or movie), How to be Bad, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Mean Girls (the movie)
