Naomi loves Ely. And she’s kinda in love with him.
Ely loves Naomi. But he prefers to be in love with boys.
Naomi and Ely have been inseparable since childhood – partially because they’ve grown up across the hall from each other in the same Manhattan apartment building, and also because they’re best friends. Soul mates. Or are they? Just to be safe, they’ve created a NO KISS LIST – their list of people who are absolutely off-kissing-limits for both of them. The NO KISS LIST protects their friendship and ensures that nothing will rock the foundation of Naomi and Ely: the institution.
Until Ely kisses Naomi’s boyfriend. And a fateful piece of chewing gum in the wrong place at the wrong time changes everything.
Soon a rift of universal proportions threatens to destroy their friendship, and it remains to be seen whether Naomi and Ely can find their way toward new soul-mate prospects…and back to one another.
Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story about love of all kinds, one that reminds us that any great friendship can be as confusing, treacherous, inspiring, and wonderful as any great romance.
Naomi is a liar. Naomi is in love with Ely. Ely loves Naomi, just not in the way she wants him too. Ely is gay. Naomi and Ely have been best friends for basically their entire lives. That is until Ely kissed Naomi’s boyfriend and s***t hits the fan.
When I first purchased my copy of Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, I really thought this was going to be a book where the straight girl best friend tries to “turn” her gay boy best friend straight. And for the beginning of the book, thats what I felt it was. Until I realized it wasn’t.
It’s about Naomi giving up this dream that her and Ely will someday get married. It’s about Ely becoming his own person. It’s about Naomi and her mom moving on from her dads horrible affair. It’s about Naomi learning that lying is just as hard as telling the truth. It’s about Ely learning that he more than just being Naomi’s best friend, he can have his own relationship out of her. It’s about Naomi loosing control of things she always tries to control. It’s about Naomi and Ely realizing that they love each other in the purest way possible, as best friends.
This isn’t a romance novel. While both characters do get their happily ever after with their significant other, its about them learning about their eighteen year friendship. And how in college things change, I love how these characters are in college.
Yes, Ely was wrong to kiss Naomi’s boyfriend. And Naomi shouldn’t be convinced that Ely will magically, one day, want to love her in the way she wants to be loved.
There were points were both characters, Naomi and Ely, infuriated me. They can be so mean and horrible to each other. They both are a bit self-absorbed.
The writing style was something I wasnt used to. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but it was something I hadn’t experienced before in a book.
After I finished the book, I watched the movie that night. Victoria Justice plays an AMAZING Naomi and Pierson Fode plays a great Ely. Victoria was able to capture Naomi’s wacky personality and Pierson was able to show Ely’s will to explore his sexuality.
There were some inconsistencies in the movie with the book:
Bruce The Second: In the book he is a math or economy major, but in the movie he’s a film major.
Ely’s Moms:
In the movie they are so extremely tense, I wasnt able to pick up on that in the book.
Naomi’s Mom:
In the book, she doesn’t really get out of bed at all but in the movie she gets out of bed more.
Then we have the things they captured really well. Naomi and Ely’s relationship, Bruce The First is the MOST CREEPY WEIRDO ever just like how he is in the book. Gabriel is amazing in both the book and the movie.
Out of all book to movie adaptations, I think this is one of the best I have seen so far.
I highly recommend this book to anyone.
Comments