Book #6

I’ve left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.

If you’re sitting there now wondering why I’m reading “teenage” fiction, well let me tell you now that I don’t necessarily believe that you have to be within a certain age group to enjoy and appreciate certain, if not all, books. Just take a look at Harry Potter, it appeals to everyone! Except for anyone that doesn’t secretly (or not) harbour desires to be a wizard, and my dad.
Also, the Earth is like 4.54 billion years old, so in the grand scheme of things I was a teenager less than a sneeze ago, or something like that.

Do I say ‘or something like that’ too much?

Okay now, let’s get down to business…
Dash and Lily both find themselves virtual orphans over the Christmas period, and rather than throw crazy wild, booze fuelled parties, which I hear are rather popular with the teenagers, they end up falling for each other by means of communicating, and giving each other dares (hence the name of the book), through a notebook that Lily leaves in a bookshop with the hope of finding a boy.

Yes, really.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares is from the same authors as Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and follows the same format of alternating narration from boy to girl with each chapter, which seems to be a good way of not causing your readers to start disliking your characters… By that, I mean the rather pretentious boy protagonist, who you inevitably start slightly crushing on, even though you know that if you knew him in real life, you’d probably want to poke at him repeatedly with a rusty pen nib… Actually, do they go rusty? I’m not sure that I have ever seen one in such a condition.
Anyhow, it was a quick, and cutesy, read that almost had me wanting to dig out a notebook, leave it in the library (because you know I’m too poor to buy all of these 150 books), and see if anyone finds, reads and replies to whatever somewhat intriguing thing I choose to write in there, leading to them then becoming absolutely infatuated with me. But as I said, it only almost had me wanting to do that, right up until the part where it’s revealed that Dash wears a fedora. There’s just absolutely no way that I’m going to take a risk like that only to find myself being subjected to such horrors.