YES NO MAYBE SO

Synopsis:

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 busy 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 romance of the century is another thing entirely.

Thank you to the publisher, who sent me a copy of ‘Yes No Maybe So’ via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received no compensation for this review.

Hiya bookish people!

Yes No Maybe So is the best RomCom I’ve read in 2020 so far! *Yes, this is the only RomCom I have read so far*. Maya and Jamie, our teenage lovebirds, are so perfect together in this novel, but the awkwardness that Jamie exhibits throughout the entire novel is also super duper adorable. He makes their relationship super wholesome. This novel is filled with so much relevance to today that I don’t know how this is going to be received. All I can tell you is that I loved it (bar from a few grievances, but when are they ever fully gone) and that this review needs to be considered.

From an external POV, the racism directed towards Maya, a Pakistani-American muslim teenage girl living in America, is written extremely well. Now, don’t freak out, I am in no way condoning this behaviour. What I want to say is that it is written so well that it upsets me to know that this happens every day, every hour to someone who almost definitely doesn’t deserve it. That makes the writing that much better – to force me to feel so upset on Maya’s behalf. Even better, Albertalli & Saeed have shown teenagers as more than just mindless creatures who sit with their phones in their hands all day, doing nothing. I cannot properly express how happy this makes me, that stereotype annoys me so much.

The primary characters in this book are also so willing to learn, which makes them that much better. Jamie is Jewish, and Maya is Muslim, and they are both willing to learn about each other in order to accept them more. However, the secondary characters are very 2d, there isn’t any background to them and I feel like they should’ve been fleshed out more if they were going to be featured the way that they were.

Now, I’m sure you are thinking, EMMA WHY IS THIS ONLY FOUR STARS?! THERE SEEMS TO BE NOTHING WRONG WITH IT! Yeah, my only other issue with this book is that it ended. And it ended so abruptly. Where’s the epilogue? Because it sure needs one.

To conclude (yes this is a school essay now, sue me), read it. That’s it. Read it.

Byeeeee

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What books did you vote for? Have you read any of the winners?

I’ll see you between the pages.