Living the Fictional Dream

“Be my girlfriend for five minutes?”

That’s the catalyst to Nick and Norah’s whirlwind night in the Y/A novel Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Nick is recovering from a brutal breakup and doesn’t want his ex to know how much he’s hurting, and Norah wants to avoid the same girl for reasons of her own. She responds to his question with a kiss, and the night begins.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, because it’s a fairly short book. In some ways, not much happens, but in other ways, they live a lifetime in one night. Nick and Norah have to figure out what they want, how to get over their exes, and how to let someone new into their lives.

My favorite thing about this book is the structure and points of view. The book is co-written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. They tell Nick and Norah’s story in alternating chapters. Because each character is written by a different author, the characters each have a truly unique voice. It really allows you to get into their heads and get to know them as characters.

Some of the most heard writing advice is to show, not tell, but in NaNIP, this rule is broken, and it’s done with abandon. Sure, there are a lot of scenes and plenty of things are shown, but there are also long passages where scenes are summarized in narration. We move through them quickly as events are filtered through Nick and Norah’s perspectives.

Normally, this telling style would drive me up the wall, but in this book, it works. The narration is so personal and dense, it’s almost like being in their heads and seeing how they see the world. The reader feels and experiences along with the characters. Cohn and Leviathan pull off what could be a really intrusive style, and make it work until I couldn’t imagine the story told in any other way.

As you can probably tell by the title, music also plays a big role in this story. It’s practically a character in and of itself, which is really interesting. Nick is part of a band and writes his own songs, and Norah’s dad is an executive at a record company, so they both live and breathe music. I don’t want to give too much away, but one of my favorite moments is Nick’s epiphany about life in relation to life being a song. I won’t tell you what that epiphany is, but you’ll know it when you get to it in the story.

Cohn and Levithan have come out with another book, as well. It’s written in the same universe as NaNIP, but none of the characters overlap. Only one setting overlaps, basically, but you feel like you’re in the same world again.

The new book is called Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List. I’ll admit, the title threw me off a bit at first, but I decided to give it a try because I’d enjoyed NaNIP so much.

The plot of NaEDKL, in a nutshell, is that Naomi and Ely have been best friends forever. They planned their wedding when they were in grade school, before Ely realized he was gay. In order to maintain their friendship after an incident in which they both had a crush on the same guy, they instituted their “No Kiss List” — a list of people who are off limits romantically for both of them. But a rule is broken, and suddenly Naomi and Ely’s friendship is blown completely apart, so they have to figure out what it is they really want.

This story is told in the same complex style as NaNIP, but the cast of characters is much wider. Naomi and Ely’s POVs are the most important, but we get many more — some for multiple chapters, and some for just one. I love multi-POV stories, because it is so fascinating to see the same scene from many different viewpoints. There is a scene during an intense game of bingo that we get from both Naomi’s POV and that of a girl named Kelly, and they each remember the events in a totally different fashion. It’s great.

My favorite chapters in the book are the ones written from the POV of the latest entry on the No Kiss List, the doorman of Naomi and Ely’s building, who is completely mad for Naomi. In one chapter, he makes her a mix tape, and each song on it has a specific meaning for him about either him or her and about the relationship they could have. The character won my heart forever when one of the songs on the playlist was “Walk Through the Fire” from “Once More With Feeling,” the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

One of the other things I liked in this book was the Bruce club — a group of insomniacs that meet in the lobby at night and (many of whom) are named Bruce.

Oh, and one minor spoiler (nothing too big). In Naomi’s chapters, her narration is punctuated by little symbols throughout. I couldn’t figure out what in the world that was for. It drove me crazy throughout the book. Then, at the end, they finally tell us. It’s not a big shocker or really relevant to the book, so I’m just going to explain it here. Then, if you read it, you won’t be wondering what they are for. Apparently, when Naomi and Ely were young, they learned sign language so they could have a secret language all their own. Naomi got pretty good at it and the symbols were her signing. Once I knew that, it all made sense! I found it particularly interesting since I have a good friend who teaching is a deaf school that focuses on ASL (American sign language).

So, to somewhat wrap up this very long post and review of two books, I will say that I enjoyed both very much, and they were definitely both worth the read. Both books deal with some mature subject matter, so they would be better for older teens; however, they are both done well. They’re also not very long, so they are a fast read. All in all, I would definitely recommend both!

Happy reading!