Reviewed by Dianna Geers for TeensReadToo.com

Naomi and Ely have grown up across the hall from each other in their Manhattan apartments. They have been together forever and know every detail about each other. Naomi knows that she and Ely will grow up to be married, have children, and live happily ever after.

Even if Ely is gay.

However, as many of us find out, life rarely turns out the way people plan. Parents don't always stay married, we don't always marry the person we love the most, people don't always keep promises, boys don't always love girls, and soul mates don't really exist. No matter how much you think they do. No matter how desperately you want them to. Life just doesn't happen that way. And really, should it?

This story is told in chapters of varying points of view. Your heart races, it aches, and it loves while you are brought into the world of lovable but flawed characters.

One of the biggest questions that comes up again and again is: How does one go on with life when everything they once knew and once planned on is no longer possible? ( )

Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List starts off with Naomi lusting after her, gay, childhood friend Ely (E-lie). It's basically about Naomi coming to grips that her and Ely will always be just friends.
The one thing about this book that really angered me was all the useless characters! Immediately the Robins are introduced, which I thought would be a fun add. However the Robins play almost no part in the whole book! Supposidly the girl Robin is close friends with Naomi but she HARDLY EVER appears in the book. I understand that Naomi's life is pretty much dominated by Ely but seriously it seemed to me that they NEVER talked until Ely was out of the picture. Also it's really aggrivating when different characters narrate their own chapter and TALK ABOUT RANDOM SHIT THAT IS IRRELEVANT!!! It would be useful if perhaps they offered a different viewpoint or information to readers but no they just talk about how screwed up Naomi is! One part was especially awful when girl Robin narrates:
Naomi is close to crying.
Robin tells Bruce she has a guy friend named Robin and her name is Robin too.
Bruce laughs and asks her where she's from.
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
This books just has too many characters that were irrelevant and too many gimmicks. I've only ever read one book that featured pictures in the place of words and I was like 6. I intended to keep it take way because I thought it was embarrassing back then.
I didn't like this book, in fact I won't lie I skimmed some chapters (GABRIEL). But I know some people will enjoy this book and whatever it's a difference of opinion. ( )

Underwhelmed. Lots of teenage angst and looooove. Written by duo of nick and nora and trying really hard to be cool and withit. Poor, beautiful NYU student Naomi is in love with her neighbor Ely who likes boys. She has a hard time getting that he will never love her in the way she wants. ( )

There is a lot to like about this book. I like the many narrators, and the distinct voices that they all get. I would've liked to have heard more from the secondary characters, actually. I also liked the central conflict and the way it was portrayed; as someone who went through a VERY similar conflict with a close friend (gay) for whom I have a strong romantic and physical affection (I'm straight, and a girl)...well. Much of it was true to life, I felt.

Overall pretty meaningful and real but not too heavy-handed anywhere, and largely entertaining and funny. ( )

Naomi and Ely have been friends since they were 5 years old. They live across the hall from one another, they’ve helped each other through the crises of high school, and until they were 15 they both believed they would grow up and marry one another and live happily every after. They do love one another, after all. But when he was 15 Ely told Naomi that he liked boys, not girls. Naomi understood that, in fact, somewhere in the back of her mind she’d known that for a while. But she didn’t stop thinking they would grow up and get married. That is to say, she didn’t stop secretly hoping for it. They keep a No Kiss List of all the people they are both attracted to. They live with this tension until one day Ely kisses Naomi’s boyfriend, and crosses the line. Naomi can no longer live with the lies – the lies she tells herself and the lies she tells Ely. But she’s not sure she can live without Ely either.