Under The Mountain

Well, if Dash wasn't such a pretentious ass it would be lovely. But then, as soon as I started reading about Dash I knew it was Levithan speaking. I knew this because I've read one of his books before and I hated it so much I almost drop kicked it off of the nearest highest building. That story was a rehash of Christmas Carol and it was just all kinds of ergh.

Lily on the other hand was just lovely. I fell in love with her pretty quickly and I knew this must be Rachel writing. Lily is a very complex, naive character whose been sheltered her whole life by her overbearing relatives and it's only when her parent's leave on holiday that she finally gets to stretch her wings a little bit. Her stories of Shrilly were hilarious and just made me love her more.

The story was pretty good. I really like the way the notebook passed back and forth and once I got used to Dash, he was okay. Still an ass, but okay. It was quite big on family and family relationships which was quite funny considering both Dash and Lily's parents were temporarily out of the picture.

I would call this a hipster book. Simply because it's Leviathan writing half of it and I swear he's trying to keep up with John Green (stop trying. Please.) and also because in a modern world, these two teenagers seem to read nothing written in the last 40 years and even list Salinger as a favourite book as a child. The most modern thing we encountered was a Madame Tussaud's, which I didn't even know they had in America, admittedly.

Although they were two different characters, somehow when Dash and Lily got together, they worked as a couple and I could see them together easily, which surprised me. Hence the high rating! It's a fun read, especially near Christmas.