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Book Review of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
GeniusJen avatar reviewed on + 5322 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

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

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

2) 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.

3) 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 b***h 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.