Review: The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

New York Times bestselling authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan are back with a life-affirming Christmas romance starring Dash and Lily.

Dash and Lily have had a tough year since readers first watched the couple fall in love. Lily’s beloved grandfather suffered a heart attack, and his difficult road to recovery has taken a major toll on her typically sunny disposition. 

With only twelve days left until Christmas—Lily’s favorite time of the year—Dash, Lily’s brother Langston, and their closest friends take Manhattan by storm to help Lily recapture the holiday magic of New York City in December. 

Told in alternating chapters, The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily reunites two beloved characters and is bound to be a Christmas favorite, season after season.

The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily is cute but also a little neurotic and far-fetched. Two teenagers, living in New York City, manage to spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on unlikely schemes and gifts while working their way through the twelve days leading up to Christmas.

Dash is a surely, brusque guy with a love of words and hardly a good one to say about anything but his girlfriend Lily or his best friend Boomer. Lily is a high maintenance, Monica-from-Friends-esque girl who only occasionally didn’t manage to get on my nerves, and has a love of Christmas that could drive anyone mad.

As the follow up to Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, we get a brief glimpse of their previous year and the hardships that have caused Lily to lose her spark. She’s pretty much lost her lust for life, causing Dash and her brother, Langston, to hash out a scheme to bring back her Christmas cheer. Of course it all goes wrong in only ways it could with Dash & Lily.

Now, normally I’d say this is a cute, contemporary YA short story. I like Dash; he’s a teenage guy trying to do what he can to cheer up his girlfriend. But - and this is a big but – Lily. She is the one who simply gets on my nerves. She expects everyone to revolve their entire lives around her and when they don’t, she pouts like a petulant child. Yes, she’s generous and has a good heart, but man she was acting like such a baby! Overall it’s an outlandish and over the top story of two teenagers in love trying to impress and outdo each other in New York City. It’s a cute, quick winter read.