High school seniors Nick and Norah meet at a music club in Manhattan. Nick is the only straight member of a queercore band, and Norah’s there to keep her bad-girl/groupie best friend out of trouble. Nick needs Norah to be his stand-in girlfriend when he sees his ex, Tris, walk in. But that five-minute assignment turns into the world’s greatest, most bizarre twenty-four-hour date. The chapters are narrated in their two alternate voices, with Norah penned by Cohn and Nick by Levithan. Readers are privy to two versions of the same events in the back-and-forth exchange. The way the two portray themselves and one another is very different, and their collective hyperanalysis of love and the universe is treated with fresh, contemporary language. Music pulses throughout a night spent bouncing in and out of various clubs and serves as a major part of each character’s identity as “straight edge.” Because straight-edge teens don’t drink or do drugs, Nick and Norah’s passionate, graphic language is their rebellion and protection, and the profanity seems to lessen as trust slowly builds and their bravado and self-consciousness fall away. Like all new love, Nick and Norah’s story is tender, funny, and awkward as they retreat and move forward with every word and every song. (Age 13 and older)

It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who’s just walked in to his band’s show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York City—and smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.

This he said/she said romance told by YA stars Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is a sexy, funny roller coaster of a story about one date over one very long night, with two teenagers, both recovering from broken hearts, who are just trying to figure out who they want to be—and where the next great band is playing.

Told in alternating chapters, teeming with music references, humor, angst, and endearing side characters, this is a love story you’ll wish were your very own. Working together for the first time, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have combined forces to create a book that is sure to grab readers of all ages and never let them go.