Dash and Lily's Book of Dares is a book about two teenagers (namely Dash and Lily) who, in the modern day of phones, social networking and email, decide to communicate using a red notebook over their Christmas holidays.

The red notebook itself is left rather secretively by Lily (written from the perspective of Rachel Cohn) on a shelf in an obscure bookstore. They both set each other a series of dares until they finally realize how connected they have become because of the red notebook.

Dash (written by David Levithan) and Lily overcome personal obstacles and unknowingly help each other through these problems. You'll even find that both characters actually stray away from the typical stereotypes set for teenagers nowadays and in some ways I believe this made both characters much more realistic, because every teenager is different. However I found I preferred Dash to Lily's character mainly because I found her to be fairly annoying. She was different but I think Rachel Cohn tried to keep the typical teenage girl elements and it didn't work as well. I didn't like Dash either because he seemed to have an underlying characteristic that I didn't like, which wasn't intentionally created but I did prefer him to Lily.

If this is your first taste of either authors I think this isn't the best example, especially of David Levithan's work. But it is worth reading and if you enjoy it, try Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green.

p.s. Do yourself a favour and don't pick your favourite character up until that very last page. Good luck reading!

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