Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily

By: Rachel Cohn, David Levithan

Narrated by: Ryan Gesell, Tara Sands

For Dash and Lily, it's beginning to look a lot like...distance! Just in time for the series release of Dash & Lily on Netflix comes a new helping of love - this time across the pond as best-selling authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan send Dash and Lily to England.

Dash and Lily were feeling closer than ever.... It's just too bad they're now an ocean apart. After Dash gets accepted to Oxford University and Lily stays in New York to take care of her dog-walking business, the devoted couple are struggling to make a long distance relationship work. And when Dash breaks the news that he won't be coming home for Christmas, Lily makes a decision: If Dash can't come to her, she'll join him in London.

It's a perfect romantic gesture...that spins out of Lily's control. Soon Dash and Lily are feeling more of a gap between them, even though they're in the same city. Will London bring them together again - or will it be their undoing?

©2020 Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (P)2020 Listening Library

Standing on the Edge...

Standing on the edge of their future, 2 young people navigate being teenaged, in love and separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Lily and Dash in London!

While somewhat implausible, the storyline invited me to suspend disbelief once again, and go on a Christmas roller-coaster along with Dash and Lily's emotions. Whilst the morals-of-the-story are perhaps a bit too preachy, it's refreshing to re-enter Lily and Dash's world, where there is Christmas magic (balanced by a modicum of realism), romance, grappling with finding one's way, and some cultural interest thrown in. Bravo to this author team, you have once again brought us Lily and Dash! (And it's NOT just for young adults. This old adult finds it to be quite refreshing!)

So Romantic especially if you are a book lover!

This book did not disappoint. I love books and I love romance so great for me!

In love with this series

This last book was the best one yet. Beautifully written and full of quotable lines. Will reread every Christmas!! Please make more seasons on Netflix!!

Awesome 3rd in series, romance and whimsy

This is another great installment of the late teenage couple! I enjoyed all the parts from across the pond. Sometimes listening to an English narrator can be hard to focus on as an American but having it performed by Americans with the accent is so much better, at least with these narrators. I like that this series isn’t all about sultry seduction like vampires or the fight to survive but more about the romance and intertwining two different but similar mundane lives of typical New York teens as they grow up. There were enough pop culture references and scenes of things that make you swoon, vivid descriptions of places and people, to keep me fully engaged. I thought it was a great part 3 and would love to hear more!

Relatable

I have been having struggles with how I wanted my future to look and I look at myself to be a mix of Dash and Lily. This really gave me some insight and different work arounds, however, I just graduated college and I feel as if I made a mistake. It was very enlightening, I just might have been late on getting there. Hopefully not though.

No Plot, and Self-Absorbed Characters

I really enjoyed the first two books in this series, but this one was a disappointment. Let's get this out of the way up front: this book has no plot. Lilly goes to London to visit Dash and they individually fret over what to do with the rest of their lives. That's the entire plot. No real goal, no real conflict, no ticking clock so no suspense, no mystery. No plot.

A book with no plot must rely on great character development. But these two characters, who I loved in the previous two volumes, come across as self-absorbed jerks for the entire first half of the book.

The second half of the book is somewhat salvaged by some interesting character interactions )although not really between Dash and Lily), but these are based on a series of coincidences that stretch the reader far beyond any limits of credulity. Everyone seems to know everyone else in this book, meet them serendipitously, and the entire world seems to be in London for Christmas.

The last part of the book reads like a promotional brochure for Claridge's Hotel. I've been to Claridge's, and it's very nice, But I don't need page after page of description of the various amenities, even if that did enable the authors to, presumably, write off the research on their taxes.

Maybe Dash and Lily have simply aged out of the YA market. They're adults now, and need to start acting like it.

Audiobook note: same readers as the previous volumes, and they're fine except that this book forced them to put on fake English accents, and they really got annoying after a while.

how to ruin a series in one book....

The best part was when it ended.
What started as two adorable teens in love (books 1 and 2) turned into a pretentious tribute to themselves (book 3).
I hate giving a book a bad review but it have me actual pain to finish this recording.
The first two books were the best kind of far fetched fiction, this was word vomit in London.
The narrator's were incredible, they held me tight while I shook from the nausea.