A review by dlberglund
Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn, David Levithan

3.0

A 16 year old has been telling me for months that I need to read this book, and I can see why she loved it. The alternating narrators are funny, quirky, intelligent, non-conformist book nerds. Granted, Dash is a little too full of himself and his giant vocabulary, and Lily is a bit much in her "one oversized majorette boot and one Chuck" getup, but overall I thought they were adorable. There were moments in which I wondered if the authors had at all planned out their narrative arc (they hadn't) and moments in which I thought the characters really shone. Some of the ensemble cast added greatly to the understanding of who Lily and Dash really are, while others I could have done without. (Why does Dash lie repeatedly to Priya, but then she shows up to support him in a crisis? What kind of friends are they? That seemed weird to me.) In other words, I think the super-team of David and Rachel should have had a more heavy handed editor to tighten the book. Overall, though, cute and appealing to a certain smart demographic that is snarly but wants to believe in something.