Mind the Gap Dash & Lily
By: Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Published Year: 2020
Publisher: Alfred A Knopf Books
Pages: 256
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Dash and Lily were feeling closer than ever...it's just too bad they're now an ocean apart. After Dash gets accepted to Oxford University and Lily stays in New York to take care of her dogwalking business, the devoted couple are struggling to make a long distance relationship work. And when Dash breaks the news that he won't be coming home for Christmas, Lily makes a decision: if Dash can't come to her, she'll join him in London. It's a perfect romantic gesture...that spins out of Lily's control. Soon Dash and Lily are feeling more of a gap between them, even though they're in the same city. Will London bring them together again--or will it be their undoing?
First Impressions
This is the 3rd (and latest) installment in the Dash and Lily series. If you haven’t read my reviews on the other books, you can read the first one here and the second one here. While I haven’t loved the other two books, they were both cute and entertaining and I definitely wanted to finish the series and find out what happened. I do love the cover and the fact that it takes place in London helped.
What I thought
We meet up with Dash and Lily another year later, this time with Dash in England during his first year at Oxford and Lily taking a gap year before deciding what to do with her life. When Dash decides to spend Christmas in London, Lily decides to tak her hard earned dog walking and business money to surprise him with a visit. Except it doesn’t go exactly as planned.
Lily hasn’t always been my favorite character and she definitely got on my nerves in this story. She immediately takes a dislike to Dash’s grandma for literally no reason and is seriously considering moving to England to attend a one year dog school that she learned about online. Dash is also disenchanted with Oxford and depressed and therefore, not doing anything about it.
I felt like in this book Dash is and has been growing whereas Lily is the one who seems immature. She isn’t confronting any of her issues, refuses to look at any other perspectives, and pretty much believes she’s the only one who knows what’s right for anyone. She did make some growth as the book went on, thanks to Dash. Otherwise she would’ve been completely intolerable. Although, if I had to hear the word “dogprenour” one more time I was going to chuck the book across the room.
Dash is struggling with a lot. And it was hard for me to not get mad at him because I would have loved to live in England and gone to Oxford. But, I know that it’s not for everyone so I tried to set my own wants and needs aside. I was so happy that Dash finally has a decent family member as well.
One difference between this one and the others is that it really didn’t revolve around Dash and Lily as a couple. Yes, there were moments here and there where that was central to the story and even the fact that he lived in England was a driving force behind some of the conflict, but mostly it was about Dash and Lily separately. They were both trying to figure out what they want in life and where they want their lives to go.
I think overall, I enjoyed this series. Dash and Lily aren’t my favorite individuals, but as a couple they usually seem to work. I do prefer the Netflix series to the books and am looking forward to seeing how books 2 and 3 are adapted. I would still recommend watching Dash and Lily over reading them, but they are all around 200-250 pages so they’re pretty quick to get through.