Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

2006. Alfred A. Knopf, 183 pgs.
Teen: Realistic Fiction

First line: The day begins in the middle of the night. I am not paying attention to anything but the bass in my hand, the noise in my ears.

Nick and Norah meet in a chance encounter and spend the entire night flitting back and forth between love and hate. Both are influenced from recent experiences of bad relationships and must learn to let go and trust each other.

I liked this book a lot, which is surprising considering I am not into the whole indie/punk/rock scene. I’m not even sure that’s the correct thing to call it. I don’t mind gay references and the girl on girl action in the bathroom was kinda hot, but the amount of cussing was a real turnoff for me. I don’t appreciate books that use fuck ten times on the same page. But the love story was good, and the teen angst was believable.

I actually saw the movie first and loved it. The book is nothing like the movie. The movie definitely took some artistic licenses with the plot line, but they both work. Because the book is told as the thoughts of Nick and Norah, that wouldn’t translate well into a movie. So changes had to be made to make the plotline of a visual movie coherent. Most of the characters had completely different personalities in the movies and in the books. Norah was the same but that was about it. Tris and Caroline’s story were significantly changed, along with Where’s Fluffys’ part in the story. That being said I enjoyed both the book and the movie in their own right.

Favorite Quotes:

"You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is possible? I want to believe in that."

"When the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a mad man and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you’re doing pretty alright in life."

"I feel like I could drown in this, in him. I have fallen into the darkness, not the darkness of the deranged or the depressed, but the darkness of the consumed, where all I see, hear, taste, feel, is the probe of our mouths and hands, the warmth of our bodies pressed against each other, the urgency of his wanting, my wanting. It’s like nothing else exists in the world right now except him, me, touching, exploring, longing, needing, sharing, having."