Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Grade: C
I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t like Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, but I didn’t say why. Sorry about that. It was months ago that I finished the book and returned it to the library, so my memory isn’t fresh, and I don’t have a copy of the book to use as a reference. This review will suffer for it. Sorry for that, too.
The book starts with a teenage musician (Nick) who is playing with his band at a nightclub. He sees his ex-girlfriend in the crowd, which upsets him, because he’s still heartbroken from being dumped. After his band finishes playing, Nick asks a girl he doesn’t know (Norah) to pretend to be his new girlfriend so that it will look to his ex as if he has moved on. Nick and Norah hit it off, and so begins an up-and-down romance that takes them all around the city, all night long.
There wasn’t much beyond that for plot, leaving me with the feeling that it was both aimless and pointless. But I’m not a member of the target audience (young adults), so I have to wonder if that was part of the problem. When you’re young, you do a lot of “hanging out,” which isn’t exactly a goal-oriented activity, so perhaps the story wouldn’t seem so aimless and pointless to young adults. And perhaps the incessant angst of the main characters would strike a chord with them, rather than reminding them of bad romance novels.
But, while I think young adults might like the book better, I wouldn’t recommend it for them either. There’s a lot of swearing and content of a sexual nature, not to mention alcohol abuse. On a related note, I’m still mad at Norah for leaving her drunk, unconscious friend in the hands of some guys she didn’t even know. It all worked out in the end, but every girl in the world needs to know that you just DON’T DO THAT!
But, to end on a positive note, I will say that Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist had its moments. Here is one of them:
We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment.