A Fun Holiday YA Romance (and a Bonus TV Rec)
The holiday season is officially upon us. All of the people who were stubbornly waiting for the end of Thanksgiving to put up their Christmas trees and hang up their decorations? They’ve all given in at this point, and you know what this means: it’s time to start your holiday reading. Today’s book is one I first read waaaay back in December 2013, which, yes, feels like 100 years ago, and at the same time, how the heck was that 11 years ago? Either way, this is a YA book I still return to and hold dearly to my heart. And if you haven’t read it yet, now is the time.
Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Dash and Lily are two teenagers living in New York, but they have never met (wild, I know, because NYC is famously small). One winter day, Dash is perusing the shelves of The Strend when he finds a notebook on a shelf with “Do You Dare?” written on the cover. Inside the book is a dare from Lily…he just doesn’t know it’s Lily yet, but he’ll get there. So begins the story of two lonely teens making a real connection with one another through a notebook before ever meeting in person. All of this takes place in the days leading up to Christmas.
The novel switches between Dash’s and Lily’s perspectives throughout the story. We get to see Dash and Lily discover more about each other and try to figure out who the other one is. It’s a mystery to each of them, but it’s not a mystery to us. This is such a fun premise to see unfold, made even more fun with the use of the notebook the two use to communicate with each other and learn about each other before they ever meet in person. Who needs DMing?
In traditional holiday romance fashion, this is a story of two people discovering their love for Christmas as well. Dash is a cynic about Christmas. Meanwhile, Lily is someone who normally loves Christmas. She even goes caroling. Yes, she is a teen who likes to go caroling. With adults. In her free time. But this year is different. This year Lily’s parents are abandoning her for the holidays to go to Fiji. So while Lily is usually optimistic and cheerful about pretty much everything, she’s also having her doubts about the holiday and about her family in general.
Dash and Lily connect because they both feel misunderstood in some capacity, and writing down their thoughts to each other has them opening up in ways they never have with their real-life friends. They listen to each other, and more importantly, they challenge each other to open up their lives to new experiences and reconnect with who they are and what they want out of life. It’s refreshing to read a holiday romance where both characters feel like fully realized human beings and yet both characters show a real capacity for growth.
Dash & Lily is such a fun, heartwarming read. What’s more: if you love this book as much as I do, there’s a really great Netflix adaptation that no one ever talks about. The Dash & Lily limited series was released on Netflix in December 2020, so if you haven’t checked that out yet, do it! It’s a wonderful adaptation, starring Austin Abrams as Dash and Midori Francis as Lily. The book also has a couple of sequels—The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily and Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily—so enjoy those, too!
Happy weekend reading, bibliophiles! Feel free to follow me on Instagram @emandhercat, and check out my other newsletters, The Fright Stuff and Book Radar!
