Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List--Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Title: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List
Author: Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan
Pages: 230 p.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN:978-0-375-84440-9

The authors of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist are at it again with Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List. Clearly, they like long titles, but I guess when you have two authors they each need to get the same number of words...

Straight girl Naomi and gay boy Ely are best friends. As close as siblings, if not closer, they have been together their entire lives through the good and bad times. Naomi's Dad had an affair with one of Ely's moms and they kept their friendship strong even through that. In order to remove any potential for conflict they created a No Kiss List--a list of people that neither one could kiss. It works well until Ely breaks the rules and kisses Naomi's boyfriend.

The kiss is just the catalyst that Naomi needs to reexamine her relationship--with Ely, not with Bruce the Second (her boyfriend). She finally admits that she has always wanted more with Ely than he could give her and that she needs to have an identity outside of him. The friendship is forever changed.

Cohen and Levithan have already proven that they can write well together. This book is further proof. Naomi and Ely are both interesting, complex people that I wanted to read more about. I'm not sure how this one was written; the point of view changed with each chapter but there were more than just the two main characters. I'm not sure who wrote which section and that's the mark of a great writing partnership. I look forward to their next collaboration!

As with Playlist, there are f-bombs and adult situations. Naomi and Ely are both in college and there's plenty of dorm-room shenanigans. I would keep this one for the high school teens.

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Cross my Heart and Hope to Spy--Ally Carter

Sequel to I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, this one is not *quite* as fun, but it's still entertaining and definitely leaves you wanting to read more stories. There's romance, spy-stuff, and loads of references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There was one sentence with both Buffy AND Veronica Mars and my head almost exploded! Lots of girl power. Good book.

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The Dead and the Gone--Susan Beth Pfeffer

This is a companion story to Life as We Knew It. It takes place in NYC, harder hit because of being on the coast, but better off in some ways because it's a city and not as remote as the country towns of Pennsylvania. Pfeffer manages to create another compelling story instead of just retelling the same events happening to different people. It's not necessary to read LAWKI, because it's not a sequel at all, but it makes it more interesting. I would recommend it to fans of LAWKI as well as people looking for a good "the world is ending" book.

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I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You--Ally Carter

Loved this book! This was just the right amount of fluff with substance that I needed. It's "romance" but there's enough adventure and other stuff in there to keep me interested. It takes place at an all-girls spy school. How cool is that? You can find a summary on Amazon. I don't have the time to write it out for you. I would definitely recommend it! Great read.

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