Review: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just a cheesy romance I picked up. I wasn’t expecting too much from it, so I was actually a bit surprised by how catchy it was.

It’s about two teens in New York’s indie music scene. If you’re not into a lot of alcohol, swearing, and sex, you definitely don’t want to read this book. Personally, the “vulgarity” didn’t bother me too much. It was a bit over-the-top, but accurate.

The whole thing was a battle between being realistic and being interesting. It’s all about the two main characters getting over their exes. Nick’s ex, Tris, was a party girl who broke straight-edge Nick’s heart to save him from a worse heartbreak down the road. Meanwhile, Norah is struggling to get over Tal, who was just using her while she made him out to be a knight in shining armor. There’s a lot of real teen issues going on, but after a while, you just want the plot to get somewhere.

As they’re figuring these issues out, Nick and Norah, who have just met, embark on an adventure through NYC in the early a.m. They argue, keep secrets, and hurt each other, but eventually come to fall in love, or at least have a fun and meaningful fling.

Writing’s nothing spectacular, but not bad. First person with good character voices. The co-authors each wrote one character, passing the manuscript back and forth, so they did a pretty good job with the unity of it.

Biggest peeve: It’s a book about music. Not very exciting in print. (Don’t get your hopes up. The movie doesn’t exactly have an “infinite playlist” going, either.)

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