Dash and Lily's Book of Dares

In the run up to Christmas I love to get into the Christmas spirit and read a few Christmassy books and so back in September, during a particularly wild Amazon book spree, I purchased ‘Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares’ by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan in preparation for the festive Winter months. When the book arrived with a lovely thump on my doorstep I was very sensible and placed it safely in a hidden corner of my bedroom to sit and wait until the reindeers roamed the streets, tinsel was strung over every available surface and it was okay to be excited for Christmas. I definitely was not going to read this book until Christmas. I wasn’t. I wasn’t! ... I did.

            I am currently writing this blog in October… Okay! Okay! So, kill me! I saw a wreath of holly in a passing shop window and I got a teensy bit excited. Well… when I say a ‘teensy bit’ I mean I freaked out in the middle of the street, pre-ordered a new reindeer pattern Christmas jumper, pulled my ‘Snowman’ snow globe down from the spiders in the attic and shook it manically as I began to read ‘Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares’.

            But, all that is beside the point. The point is that ‘Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares’ is one of the most wonderful Christmas books that I have ever read! The book follows the story of New York teenagers, Dash and Lily (the co-writers writing the two perspectives chapter for chapter) as they get to know each other over Christmas using only the fantastic dares and challenges they leave each other in a little red Moleskine notebook.

 Now, bear in mind, just in case you like to take my word as law (As I know you all definitely do!) that this is not for all you lactose intolerant readers out there. This book definitely has rich, creamy, full-fat gorgonzola cheese as its main ingredient – and I loved it! Cheese is exactly what a Christmas book should have, heck, the entire season is cheesy, not just its literature. There were so many sweet little scenes and Christmassy settings that I could almost smell the cinnamon in the air. I have never in my life left Europe but I’ll be damned if I don’t what Christmas in New York is like after reading that book.

Dash, I thought, was a very unlikely character to appear in a Christmas book and at first I found him quite irritating. The complete opposite to Lily, he hated Christmas and chose to spend Christmas alone, hiding from parties and festivities and delicious gingerbread men.  Dash seemed to think himself incredibly deep and troubled because of this particular preference and kept spouting pretentious moody rubbish all the way throughout the book.  However, as I became more familiar with the characters and their individual thoughts and feelings I began to realise that this was no accident. Dash was meant to be annoying! Though infuriating, it was crucial to the plotline and I actually began to become quite fond of this particular personality quirk.

I liked Lily straight off the bat! I think her best contribution to the novel as a whole is her close connection with her family. Lily’s relatives feature a lot throughout the novel and though they may only be minor parts I think collectively they make the book more Christmassy than any number of snowflake baubles, giant nutcrackers or North-Pole themed mittens. This may only be a personal opinion, but, to me, family is the most important aspect of Christmas and I know that if Cohn and Levithan had forgotten to sprinkle a few aunts, uncles and lazy older brothers into their writing, then the book would not make my heart swell as much as it did.

Because I am a lazy blogger, now, as I finish this blog, the calendar reads December 15^th. I have read ‘Dash and Lily’ again since my little (massive) Christmas freak out back in October and I can confirm to you that nothing I have said as thus is a lie - induced by an early dose of mistletoe and fake shop-display snow. The book manages to maintain its lovely warmth and sweetness for the re-read and if, still, this late into December, you haven’t yet felt that familiar glow that comes from warm mince pies and santa-shaped mittens, then I guarantee you, this is the book to kick-start your holiday spirit! 

Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Purple - Will Grayson, Will Grayson

This is the Rainbow List of Must-Reads: Where I review a different one of my favourite books each week! Sixth on our list we have a purple book with a purple cover:

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

            As I lifted ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ from the shelves of my local Waterstones, a strange sadness washed over me. Having just finished ‘An Abundance of Katherines’ (My favourite of his works) I had rushed to the shops to complete my Green collection – Now, I wished I had waited just a little bit longer. This was the last one of John Green’s books that I hadn’t read. This book would be the last time for a while that I would get the excited rush of reading something of his for the first time.          

For those of you who don’t know, ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson ‘ is shared by two authors; with John Green writing the odd numbered chapters and David Levithan the even. It follows the story of two teenage boys; both named Will Grayson, living in different parts of Illinois. The issues that the two boys are faced with in their day-to-day lives cause their stories to intertwine one faithful night in Chicago outside a dirty looking sex shop.

    

        I slipped into the story of ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ in the same way one would slip into a hot bath. I sighed with a mixture of bliss and relief as I sailed through the first chapter. I had gone to the bookshop in search of some sweet John Green familiarity and I was not disappointed.

Though in ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ Green’s characters are somewhat different to what we have seen before (The book features the exuberant, extravagant and fantastically gay character of Tiny Cooper) the writing style is still easy, warm, satisfying and distinctly John Green.  It was exactly what  I came for, I was not disappointed. However, when I bought the book there was one rather large aspect of it that I had forgotten – co-writer, David Levithan.

After John Green’s smooth opening chapter, the switch in writers was a bit of a shock. Not only because Levithan has refused to any capital letters in his chapters whatsoever (something which took quite a bit of getting used to), but also because the two writer’s main characters have a strong and obvious contrast. While Green’s Will Grayson seems your typical awkward, ordinary teenage boy, hopelessly trying to fly under the radar of high school life, Levithan’s Will Grayson is an angry, angsty teenager with a severe case of depression, desperately clinging to his online relationship with another boy.

Levithan’s Will Grayson definitely wasn’t what I was expecting from a book with John Green’s name on it. But as I worked my way through the book I found myself savouring Levithan’s chapters a little more than Green’s. As much as I enjoyed Green’s Grayson’s side of the story, Levithan’s came as a refreshing change of pace, giving the book whole new dimensions.

The character development in ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ is simply beautiful. Though initially I found both Will Graysons annoying and horrifically self-involved, as the book progressed I began to understand them and relate to them in ways I don’t usually with other books.

One of the reasons ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ made such an impact on me was because the characters were imperfect - and that was okay. Often, teen fiction can undermine the emotions of young characters as instances of teenage angst rather than issues that should actually be recognised and dealt with. In ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ the problems of the two main characters were indulged by the writers in a most satisfying way. The reader is taught that the dilemmas you are faced with as a teenager are equally as important as the ones you will face in your adulthood and can in fact affect you for the rest of your life.

          

   I loved ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ because it is a book written by adults that finally manages to acknowledge that being a teenager is difficult, without seeming condescending in any way. And that it why I believe it deserves the purple spot on this list. 

You can find out more about John Green here!

You can find out more about David Levithan here!

You can read the other reviews in the Rainbow List of Must-Reads here: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue