Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

NICK & NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST by

Rachel Cohn

David Levithan

Category: Contemporary

Age Recommendation: Grades 9+

Release Date: 5/23/06

Publisher: Knopf

Reviewed by:

Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

Rating: 5 Stars

Before I start the story that is Nick and Norah, I decided we needed to get some misconceptions out of the way first.

I don't live in Manhattan, so I won't understand what the characters are talking about.

Wrong! I don't live

Manhattan-- actually, I've never been farther East than Ohio, but I still got the gist of the story quite easily. Sure, I

might

never have visited Times Square, but I've been on the Square in my hometown (population 3,400), and the

same types of

things went on there that go on in New York.

This book is full of cursing.

Right! And if you haven't heard a lot of curse words (do I really need to spell them

out?),

especially from the mouths of teens, in the last twenty years or so, I'm guessing you live on a commune

somewhere in the

middle of Utah.

This book only covers one night.

Right again! And oh, what a night it is! One night, filled with all the ups,

downs, and

sideways that being a teen in todays world brings.

Now that we've got that out of the way, we can concentrate on the story. It's about Nick, a bassist for a band with

an ever-

changing name, who recently had his heart broken by a bitch named Tris. It's about Norah, an uber-

complicated girl with

more issues than

The National Enquirer

, who not too long ago had her virginity broken by

Tal. And then there's Caroline,

and Jessie, and Uncle Lou, not to mention Dev and Thom, and Randy from Are You

Randy?, and Hunter from Hunter.

There's beer, and there's drugs, and there's sex, although none of it is Nick or

Norah's.

There's heartbreak, and devastation, and lust, and forgiveness, and acceptance. There's parents to deal with, and

friends to

attempt to deal with, and a boy and a girl who wish that, just once, they could be themselves and not deal

at all. There's a

love story, and a song about a girl on a street in the middle of the night, and a band that just might

make it big, and a car that

won't start, and a subway ride that requires jumping the turnstyle.

There's love, and anger, and disappointment, and desperation, and redemption. There's life, and then there's Nick

and

Norah. There's a story here, and you need to read it.

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