Dash and Lily meet through a notebook left in a bookstore by Lily (with the help of her older brother) and found by Dash. This smart, funny novel is set in New York City during the holiday season, a time Dash hates, while it’s Lily’s favorite part of the year. The contrast serves initially to define each of their characters: Dash is sophisticated and sarcastic, Lily is innocent and upbeat. In chapters that alternate between Dash’s (penned by David Levithan) and Lily’s (written by Rachel Cohn) perspectives, the two teen’s lives draw closer and closer together through their conversation on the notebook’s pages. They send one another to tantalizing, often seasonally festive locales around the city to retrieve the notebook for each round of the exchange. They also demand honesty of one another, and in responding to that demand each is challenged to reveal more than what they would typically share with people they know. Dash and Lily are articulate and witty—perhaps too much so to quite ring true—but it’s impossible not to become drawn into their lives in this delightful story that probes the sometimes surprising depths of each of their characters as a friendship on paper develops—with a few dramatic and sometimes hilarious ups and downs—into romance. (Age 13 and older)