Book Versus Movie — Dash and Lily

Yeah, Netflix did it again. They turned another YA novel into a movie. Well, it’s a mini series in this case, but you get the point. Netflix has become home to the adaptations of many Young Adult bestsellers, including the To All of the Boys I Loved Before series, The Kissing Booth novels, and now, Dash and Lily.

Dash and Lily premiered on Netflix last month. It is eight episodes long, and the book series as of the time that this is published, is a trilogy by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. The novel starts out like this: “Imagine this: you’re in your favorite bookstore, scanning the shelves. You get to the section where a favorite author’s books reside, and there, nestled in comfortably between the incredibly familiar spines, sits a red notebook.”

The premise of the series is basically a Christmas scavenger hunt in New York City. New York City is the best place to be during the holiday season. We have Dash and Lily who are complete and total opposites. Dash is the anti-Christmas, while Lily is obsessed with the holiday. Dash is wandering the Strand bookstore, when he comes across a red notebook in the Sallinger section with the title do you dare? Intrigued, Dash picks up the notebook and begins a series of dares. Once completing them, he then leaves the book, with his own dares.

This then turned into a series of dares on both ends. Throughout these dares, they both become close to them and fall in love with the person at the end of the pen.

I am going to be honest here. For the most part, the book and the series are pretty similar, which is great. That said, the big difference is that in the show Dash is a little more upset about the breakup with Sofia then he was in the book. In the show, he also rejects her, where in the book, he does not and they end up hooking up.

That said, I loved both the books and the series. I thought that this was really adorable and it really got me into the Christmas spirit. Furthermore, I also enjoyed watching the series because it brought me to New York City in the fall, which due to the pandemic is somewhere where I can’t visit at the moment. I highly recommend both if you’re looking for a holiday read or show, because this show honestly is what Christmas is all about. And, both honestly put such a huge smile on my face.