Once Upon a Bookshelf

When Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes while he’s attempting to avoid an ex-girlfriend, neither expected to spend the rest of the night with that person, nor wanting to spend as much time as possible, getting to know the other person as much as possible. The book spans from that question to well after the sun has risen the next day.

Both Nick and Norah are in their late teens, and are in the process of getting over tough break-ups. Both kids also seem to be big into the indy-music theme; Nick’s in a band, and Norah’s dad is some big-time music company exec. It also happens that Nick’s ex-girlfriend is a friend of Norah’s from school – ah, the complications of high-school love.

I didn’t retain too much of what I learnt in high school, but I do recall one specific conversation that one of my teachers was having with our English class one day. She said that the more people swear, the less intelligent they come across; as if they can’t find other words and so just stick with swearing instead. It struck me as true then, and still does.

So, I had a bit of a problem with the language in this book. I mean, I know teens will talk the way that Nick and Norah talk, but where’s the line between making the character believable and going overboard? It almost struck me that they were going for shock value.

Overlooking the language, though, I thought the book was quite good. I loved the characters (even if Nick came across as more emo than punk, but hey, I’m not complaining about that one), and the authors get MAJOR bonus points for the references to My So-Called Life. (Why do they always cancel the good shows?)