Friday, September 26, 2008

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist ~ Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
Knopf Books for Young Readers
(August 28, 2008)
192 Pages
$8.99 (paperback)
$7.99 (movie tie-in cover)


Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist begins with Nick, on stage with his band, catching sight of his ex Tris in the crowd. She's there with someone new so when he sees her coming towards him, he asks a girl he's never met before to be his five minute girlfriend.

That girl is Norah who also has a history with Tris and an ex of her own and so begins the tale of Nick and Norah. Their story is told through a music filled night in Manhattan with different clubs, characters, friends, bands, and bits of their lives thrown into the mix.

First let me just say how much I really wanted to love this book. I really did.

But I didn't. I still loved the storyline, for the most part, but the writing style just didn't work for me. Aside from the fact that there were maybe 600 'fuck's in the 192 page book that I found more distracting than necessary, I didn't even want to finish the book in the middle. I liked the Norah chapters better than the Nick chapters--which I suppose makes sense with a cowritten book--but I felt like they were trying to hard at times. Things that would work for a sentence go on for a paragraph or page(s) and got annoying.

There were also some continuity problems--early on Norah told Nick her friends name at least two or three times (and she was right there with them) and then later on when she said 'Caroline so and so' he had no idea who Caroline was....For spoilery reasons I can't explain exactly but it seemed strange.

And in Chapter 13/14, it seemed like Levithan created a continuity problem and then Cohn (through Norah) yelled at him for it...and sort of got the story (and writing) back on track. While I enjoyed the story and how it was written more after that, having a character's name randomly changed two thirds of the way through a book with a confusing exchange, isn't something I enjoy.

I enjoyed the story of this book so I plan on seeing the movie (which does look different in at least a few ways...) but I plan on finding Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List )the other book the two authors wrote together) from the library or elsewhere for free because I'm not buying it.

I'm not sure what to rate this book because the writing style might just be a personal preference that someone else will love and the storyline was good...but there were some continuity errors/goofs...

6/10 because while I couldn't stand the writing style, I'll try to rate it on the plot...I tried a 7 but I just couldn't, sorry

1 comment:

  1. there were some awkward moments in this movie that were hard to get past... such as every time that gum was re-used (yuck!)

    ReplyDelete

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