Assalamualaikum, good day dearest!
Title: Yes No Maybe So
Author(s): Becky Albertalli, Aisha Saeed
Pages: 436
Genre: Young Adult, Romance
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year published: 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-297776-2
Blurb:
YES
Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state senate candidate - as long as he's behind the scenes. When it comes to speaking to strangers (or let/s face it, speaking at all to almost anyone), Jamie's a choke artist. There's no way he'd ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes... until he meets Maya.
NO
Maya Rehman's having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too bust to hang out, her summer trip is canceled, and now her parents are separating. Why her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing - with some awkward dude she hardly knows - is beyond her.
MAYBE SO
Going door to door isn't exactly glamorous, but maybe it's not the worst thing in the world. After all, the polls are getting closer - and so are Maya and Jamie. Mastering local activism is one thing; navigating the cross-cultural crush of the century is another thing entirely.
The story centers around Jamie, an awkward teenager and Jewish-American with a family heavily involved with the local political scene. As usual, Jamie would spend his summer holidays canvassing for the voting campaign, not that he minded. However, his mother dropped the bomb that he will be giving a toast at his sister's bat mitzvah. He minded because of his previous experience of public speaking went badly. And not to mention having a crush on his old schoolmate, Maya who suddenly appeared back in his life did not help his nerves.
Maya, a Muslim-American with South Asian heritages, was in a weird moment of her life. Her loving parents suddenly announced their separation and her father moved out of the house. Her best friend, the one and only friend that she hung out with, was busy preparing for college and moving away. After meeting Jamie, her mother offered her service to go canvassing with him. Now that her summer were open and with her mother's promise of a car, Maya agreed.
Starting this book was quite weird for me because, I know nothing about American politics and the voting system. And this book really does the political talk. Jamie's passion for the political situation, the hijab ban bills situation, and their meeting with the state rep(?) to talk about the ban, was all too unfamiliar and interesting read to me.
The book started okay and I kinda enjoyed reading Jamie being an awkward, clumsy self around Maya and to see their friendship grow was heartwarming. Plus, reading on dual pov gave me perspectives on both Maya's and Jamie's thoughts on each other. However, as the story progresses, it gets dull with very little things that went on and mostly were on politics. And of course, Maya has to be that western's one-sided Muslim representation. As the story starts during Ramadan, she fasts on her own choice, good. But she swore quite a lot. She did not wear hijab by choice, okay. But she fought against the hijab ban bill quite fiercely. She did not date because of her religion, nice! But then she initiated the kiss once she realized they shared the same feeling? Wow. Basically, being a Muslim in this book is just a superficial value. None of the depth.
Safe to say, I had a downward likeness towards this book. It started out okay and I definitely enjoyed it. But as the story continued, I started to find more faults in it. Plus, Jamie's character had close to no development, making it even harder for me to like it. So, to conclude, this book is a No for me.
-thes
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