Rachel Cohn and David Levithan team up again after their first successful collaboration, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. While the aforementioned title has many of the same elements, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List is a different kind of emotional journey between two teens. The dual narrators Infinite Playlist boasted make a return here in the form of multiple narrators with Cohn and Levithan switching off between perspectives, providing an in-depth look at Naomi and Ely from side characters.

Naomi and Ely grew up across the hall from each other in a New York City apartment complex. Best friends from childhood even after surviving tough problems within their families, Naomi loves Ely loves Naomi, with one catch—Naomi is also in love with Ely likes kissing boys way more than girls.

To protect their friendship, they create a No Kiss List, adding boys that meet both their taste to it so that any dramatic problems will be avoided. The story is titled for this list, even though what causes the rift in Naomi and Ely’s friendship, leading them both on a path to self-discovery is someone not on the list at all. It never occurred to Naomi to add Bruce the Second to the list so Ely wouldn’t kiss him.

After all, Bruce the Second is Naomi’s boyfriend.

The No Kiss List in the title and at the heart of this story at plays both a large and small role at once. The list works two ways; for Ely, its purpose is the put their friendship first by staying away from guys they might both like to prevent problems. For Naomi, its purpose is to keep boys Naomi thinks might take Ely away from her at a distance, to perpetuate the hope Naomi holds that one day Ely will love her back the same way she loves him. She doesn’t need the list to keep away guys for herself as Ely does, because for her, Ely is it, even as she strings along guy after guy waiting for Ely to finally realize that he loves her back—regardless of his sexuality.

This story, narrated by several characters, centers on friendship and romantic love and is played out between Naomi and Ely and their friends. There’s Bruce the First, with his impossible crush on Naomi, Ely’s love for Bruce the Second and the love he gets back, even though Bruce the Second didn’t think he was gay. Gabriel, the doorman of the apartment Naomi and Ely live in was on the No Kiss List, but once Ely has betrayed Naomi by kissing her boyfriend, does the No Kiss List even matter? Ultimately it becomes about how friendships and relationships are defined by different people, what lengths some people will go to place a friendship at the heart of their lives to the detriment of everything else and how they change as we grow. The idea of a friendship so close that romantic love is impossible—can a friendship like that survive as teens turn to adults?

Cohn and Levithan address how the concept of best friend that is forever and ever to the inclusion of other people and loves is inherently flawed. They take two teenagers and show how differently this question can be answered depending on perspectives, and tackle the sticky side of how trust in all relationship works and how badly those relationships can be broken if that trust is shaken. Although the book is about breaking up and making up, it’s also about being honest and open with everyone.

I’m just sort of feeling a happy glow. This is a book I would have wanted when I was a teenager—how to deal with loving friends who are gay and will never love you back the right way. It would have been so validating, why did the YA suck so much when I was a teen. Damn you, R.L. Stine! I’m starting to wonder if the gay boy/straight girl thing is going to become a trend—I’ve seen other books that follow the pattern. I spent most of the novel driven crazy by how much I loved the characters but how much I hated Naomi’s symbol habit as a code for her and Ely signing to one another. It works but damn if it doesn’t drive me up the wall. I found the title funny because it really has nothing to do with the novel after the few few chapters except as a reference to a friendship strained by Ely kissing Naomi’s boyfriend.

However, Orbit is not Juicy Fruit, cover guys! WHAT IS UP? Perhaps Orbit hasn’t reached critical cultural mass yet.

Back in April, there were rumors of a movie with Hayden Panettiere at the helm and Ely and Bruce the Second still uncast, leaving me unable to squee properly. I was nervous about it then and am also nervous now, and wonder if it’s still even a possibility. I don’t know how well Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist did in theaters and don’t rightly know if the success of that movie would stop this one from getting a green light, and I can’t tell if Panettiere is attached to the project anymore. Considering that her star might be dimming because Heroes has started to suck big balls, maybe I should stomp on my hopes and dreams. This is the one I would go to see because fuck, boys making out? ON A GIANT SCREEN? I would camp out for a triple feature, pay for three tickets and watch it over and over and over. I am that hard up for touching romance and hot boy-on-boy action and I am not afraid to say so.

Also, there is so much talk about cock in this book. HOW DID IT GET PUBLISHED. I am so jealous of teens these days, where were these things when I was a teen. *sobs into hands*

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