"Young Adult" fiction - a 99p kindle deal-of-the-day. Dash is a bit of a nerd, who comes across a note hidden in a book while he's browsing a bookshop.

I've left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don't, put the book back on the shelf, please.

Needless to say he turns the page, finds a couple of obscure questions, and follows them up, solving them and including some puzzles of his own when he leaves his answers for his mystery correspondent.

And, obviously, the other participant in the game is a young girl, Lily. They continue to correspond, and eventually do meet. Both are mixed up in their own ways, so this is the sort of book that would appeal to young people of either gender, who'd no doubt be able to identify with them.

It was an OK-ish read, but didn't live up to the intrigue of the premise. Nice bit of writing I highlighted:

I don't mean this to sound hopeless. Because in the same way that a kid can realize what "c-a-t" means, I think we can find the truths that live behind our words. I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discocered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learned the words. It must have been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily.

Completed : 24-August-2015