Book Report: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

I loved this book. I started reading it while grumpy, but that's probably why I bought it in the first place.  I spent a good hour and a half, possibly two hours walking around Barnes and Noble picking up books, putting them down, going from one section to another then back again. I looked at my Good Reads list and other recommendations and this is the book I came to right at the end. The last grab in my pile of three.

I started reading it grumpy and ended it smiling. This book was what I had been looking for. It's not AS good as my John Green loves, but it's close. It starts in a bookstore, not just any bookstore, but The Strand. Mental note: MUST VISIT THE STRAND. I mean really, how did I visit New York and not visit the best place ever?

Anyway, the story starts in The Strand and it's full of adventure and personality growth...it's a small smidgeon of time in the characters' coming of age adventure. It switches back and forth from their perspectives, you wonder if it's going to work, it makes me want to go out and do things, it doesn't, however, make me want to live in New York.

I have not written about books I've read in the past because I don't want to say what happens.  But I have shared lines or passages and I think I'll do that for this one. There were several that hit, there were several that made me think like I wanted to think. This one is most relevant though, and the context isn't really necessary. It's just life.

I need to keep my mind open for what could happen and not decide that the world is hopeless if what I want to happen doesn't happen. 

I often wonder why I read fiction, especially young adult fiction, I wonder what I am looking for in these books. Why one isn't enough and neither is five or seven or twelve. I think sometimes I am looking for answers, I think many times I'm looking for answers, or even hints. I'll take a glimmer of hope. I'm looking for a to-do list, or maybe just a hint of hope for love, for the wide eyed wonder that teen love is written to be... I'm a sucker for a good love story.

This book didn't have an answer for why I get sad or a reason for why I feel lonely from time to time, but it did make me feel hope, and happy. It made me remember to accept things as they come, and enjoy them, even if they don't happen as I want them to.

It'll stay on the shelves for sure.

xoxo