Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (Netflix Tie-in)

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       January 10, 2021

 

Author  Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Distributor:      Allen & Unwin Children's
ISBN:                 9781760878283
Publisher:         A&U Children's
Release Date:   November 2020  

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Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares is the first book in the series and the one that explains how it all began, and how, during a time of year, when people are either loving or hating the Christmas season fun and love can be found if you are prepared to try something different.

Lily is mad about Christmas; she loves everything about it, the family traditions, the snow, the decorations, the special baking that is done once a year and the family all gathering over Christmas as they have done since she can remember, which is a while but not all that long.

Dash really does not like Christmas at all; his idea of enjoying it is to be left alone with a good supply of things he loves to eat, a heap of good books and peace and quiet.

Lily is unlucky-in-love and desperately wants to have someone special in her life, but as she is a little different to most kids her age, in that she has a business walking dogs, dresses alternatively and loves to cook, this is not proving easy. Her brother Langston, who has been in love twice, the first time with devastating results, challenges her to a dare, involving a rather large bookshop The Strand, where her cousin works and a red note book with a challenge in it, written as a clue.

As it turns out Dash is the one to find the red note book and read the challenge, deciding that this was something different and intriguing, and as he did not have much else to do, also having broken up with his girl-friend, he would accept the challenge.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have combined their immense talent to skilfully create a pair of unlikely protagonists who are just different enough to make a fascinating tale of romance, change, challenge and acceptance evolve into a timeless story of growing up, falling in love, which leads to discovering that different and the same are often two parts of a perfect whole.

As Dash and Lily have to meet eventually, no matter how much they believe they may have heaps in common, other than just books, until the early beginnings of young love come out of the red notebook and into real life, how are they going to know if they really are the ones for each other, which could prove their biggest dare yet.

Enjoy getting to know this intriguingly different pair as they begin a romance which will blossom into several more books, all as enjoyable and entertaining as Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares. Dash and Lily’s falling to love has been turned into a Netflix series, with Book of Dares re-released to tie-in with the release of the Netflix movie,