Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Netflix Series Tie-In Edition) (Dash & Lily Series)

I generally enjoy books over movie adaptations. I did not this time. I much preferred the Netflix Dash&Lily series over the book.Being 38 yo, I, of course, am not the target audience, but lets be real A LOT of adults love YA books. By the way - I’m a woman using her husband’s account.The book was not as clear and concise in terms of character and storylines as the Netflix series - the book seems to go off the deep end sometimes. The Netflix series seemed to take the best bits of the book and made Dash&Lily a better and more inclusive story.If you love the series on Netflix, don’t assume you will love the book - I was so ready for this to be my new guilty pleasure!!! Check it out from the library or buy a used copy OR just watch it on Netflix again!

Bought this after the Netflix version broke out. Daughter loves both.

Such a good book , packing was good

I get the feeling this book is written for teenagers, erudite teenagers but teens just the same (“The Wizard of Oz” was written for very little children, just learning to read, which never gets mentioned). That said, it’s still a fairly good read for light entertainment. Like many, I came to it via the Netflix serialized movie version, which is an improvement on the book on at least a couple of fronts; The movie is convincingly diverse, where the book seems to have a nearly all white cast; Lily is not Chinese-American. Boomer is not black. The book takes the extended family concept to its extreme, with too many influential connections, producing adventures (and misadventures) that end up left out of the movie, to good effect.The writing is simple, straight forward; with the narratives of Lily and Dash alternating from chapter to chapter. Once the two engage via the red Moleskine, the overlapping linear narratives are connected by loops. There is one cumbersome section in a Dash narrative where he meets Lily’s Great Aunt “Basil E” and then tries to be sardonic, in the manner of a 1920’s Hemingway novel. It doesn’t work at all, but the authors are in good company; while Hemingway carried it off, then moved on; Raymond Chandler spoiled at least two of his better novels trying to perfect a wise-guy dialog and failed, yet didn’t stop. Cohn and Levithan realize their mistake and stop making it.Lily is a 16 year old city girl, living a very, Very sheltered life in a Greenwich Village apartment, in a building owned by her Grandpa, who used to run a store on the ground floor. She’s the sort of kid who takes the holidays seriously, from decorating to baking, and especially family. But this year it’s all a mess: Mom and Dad have flown off to Fiji for a long delayed honeymoon. Grandpa is off to Florida (he lives one floor up) leaving Lily in the supervision of Langston (named for Langston Hughes?) her 18 year old brother, who as it turns out is madly in love with his new boyfriend, then catches the flu, and so is of little company, let alone supervisory attention. But, he does give Lily a little red Moleskine notebook, writes the first dares, and instructs her to leave it at the Strand bookstore for someone to find.Dash (named for Dashiell Hammett no doubt) finds the notebook, is intrigued, and takes the dare and the story is off.I can’t remember when I read a book, a new, modern book, that was so unabashedly urban centric; Nobody harbors jealousy for people with yards, or wishes they had a car; or looks for malls to hang out in. The idea of moving to Fiji is not something to celebrate, it’s a horror; not so much Fiji itself, but the very idea of leaving Manhattan. Sure the book is too pat in its story telling, there’s really only one moment where the book leads to magic (as Dash himself observes, on finding himself in Great Aunt “Basil E’s” luxurious townhouse, where he says it is just the sort of place he’d expect the notebook to take him). Too many of the dares involve tourist attractions rather than Manhattan (and other borough) secrets known only to locals. Still, it’s a fun read and worth it.

Have you guys seen the new Netflix show, Dash and Lily? I discovered it a couple of weeks ago on Netflix and was immediately hooked. And by hooked, I mean I binged watch all of the episodes in less than two days. When I found out that the show was based on a book by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan, I knew I had to read it. I have never read any of Cohn & Levithan’s works before, but when I discovered they were the original authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, one of my all-time favorite movies, I knew I would be in for a real treat. I loved the Dash & Lily Netflix series, but that doesn’t mean I thought it was perfect. There were little parts of the show that I didn’t particularly enjoy. For example, Lily had way too many relatives and connections, especially in a city as big as NYC. I also really hated the part where Dash met Lily’s great Aunt Basil E. I just couldn’t accept that the planned dare and meeting of Dash and Mrs. Basil E. would work as well as it did. It seemed too – perfect. The dialogue also seemed strange even for a boy as snarly as Dash. I couldn’t imagine him actually saying those things to her or being so casual. In most cases, the book is always better than the movie (or show). I typically read a book before seeing a show or movie. This was a rare exception. I am also usually very disappointed in the movie or show adaptions of books that I love, but this was also another rare exception. Both the book and the show were thoroughly enjoyable, albeit not perfect. They had many high moments and a handful of low ones thrown in for good measure. One thing that I did not like about the book is the scene where Lily dares dash to see Santa at Macy’s for the red notebook. In the book, Santa is perceived as being very perverted. He essentially gropes Dash, and Dash just kind of deals with it for the most part because he wants to get the notebook from him. This was very unbelievable for me as a reader, especially that he would do this in front of all of the kids, and no one other than he and Dash would know. In contrast, the episode of Dash and Lily that includes Dash going to Macy’s to see Santa on a dare from Lily shows him going for a more specific purpose – to not only get the red notebook back from Lily but to learn her name. This adds a sense of magic to the entire scene. The book loses some of its magic by giving Dash Lily’s name right from the get-go. I still had a hard time believing some of the events that took place during the Santa scene in the show, but I liked how Santa was portrayed as being a drunk with bourbon-scented breath rather than being a complete pervert that was feeling Dash up. A drunk and mean Santa was still a little far-fetched for me, but still much more believable than the perverted portrayal Cohn & Levithan crafted. I didn’t like the meeting between Dash and Mrs. Basil E. in either the show or the book. However, I hated it less in the book. The whole meeting seemed a bit far-fetched and out of place in the show, and the banter between Mrs. Basil E. was not believable. The same was true about the book, but in the book, the dialogue was much longer and funnier than on the show. While it still felt out of place and far-fetched, it did help to further characterize Dash and show off more of his nonchalant, sarcastic, and snarky attitude. I know that they had to shorten this in the show due to time constraints, but they really did lose a lot by doing so. The show and the book’s differences become much more significant and distinct in the second half of the book. This is where the book comes to a climax and gets to the point where you can no longer turn away. I was surprised that the show did not focus much on Lily’s dog walking business since that ended up being such a huge part of the book. I didn’t think much of it at first, but the more I read, the more I saw how or why this was important to Lily, and I appreciated how Cohn & Levithan introduced the reader to Lily’s love for dogs, why she didn’t have her own dog, why she wanted her own dog, and the role that dog walking would play in that. I also read the sneak preview included at the end of the book that shows a snippet of Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily, which focuses more exclusively on Lily and her dog walking business. I think this was excellent writing from both of the authors. However, the whole part about Boris running off, getting loose, the chaos caused by the Moms and the baby falling and being caught by Lily, turning both Dash and Lily into celebrities towards the end of the book was just straight-up weird to me. I couldn’t believe that this is something that could actually happen in real life. It seemed way too far-fetched for me, and I don’t think it added much to the book, other than having Dash & Lily meet up again and giving Lily the dog she wanted. However, there could have been a much better way to have Dash & Lily meet again and for Lily to get her dog. This seemed a little too creative to me. It read like very clumsy writing. However, I think this would have been better suited for the Netflix series. After reading it in the book, while it didn’t feel like it fit in with the rest of the book, I did kind of wish it was included on the show. I would have liked to have seen Dash and Lily in the interrogation room together with Boris. My favorite part of the book was included in the show, but significantly different, and that was the ending of the book when Lily plans a special date for Dash at The Strand. In the show, the planning is actually done by Dash to see Lily before she leaves for Fiji. However, in the book, it's Lily who does the plan so that she can gift Dash with access to the complete set of Oxford English Dictionaries, even if only for one night. This was probably my favorite episode in the Dash and Lily Netflix series since it was so romantic and charming of Dash to put together. However, the book is even more romantic and allows the reader to watch how Dash & Lily’s relationship is blossoming and beginning to develop. I am also an English graduate and current communication scholar and proud word nerd and bookworm. For me, the idea of being locked in a bookstore overnight and making a date of studying the etymology of words sounds like a dream come true. Overall, despite being a bit unbelievable in parts, I thoroughly enjoyed Cohn and Levithan’s original version of Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares every bit as much as I enjoyed the Netflix adaptation. I am very excited that there are two more books in the series thus far, and I intend to read them as well. 4 out of 5 Stars for Cohn and Levithan’s first book in the series. Here’s hoping for more Dash & Lily stories and episodes soon!

I can’t even believe a book written for teens starting at 12 has the F word in it so many times. I didn’t finish it.