Rating: 4 stars
Official book description:
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.
Jamie is Jewish. Maya is Muslim. Their mothers used to be friends, and apparently, they were inseparable on the playground for a while when they were little. However, Jamie and Maya haven't seen each other in a very long time, and are now both in high school. Jamie has seen Maya in a couple of places and is instantly smitten, Maya is too busy being upset about her parents separating and her best friend is too busy to work and/or prepare for college to really have time for her at all. The two get thrust together to do political canvassing during an important local election in Georgia (very timely, really).
To begin with, Maya only agrees to continue with canvassing because her parents promise to get her a car after the election. Jamie's cousin is in charge of volunteering for the campaign and keeps getting crazier and crazier as the election approaches, so he couldn't really opt out, even if he wanted to. Any chance to hang out with Maya, even if it means talking to strangers about politics, is good with him. As they get to know each other better, the two teens also become a lot more involved in the politics at stake, and soon, the canvassing and trying to help the campaign becomes really important to both of them.
Yes No Maybe So is a collaborative work between the two YA authors Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, who both live in Georgia. They were both gutted by the presidential election results in 2016 and wrote this book partly as a response. The authors have included local places that mean a lot to them, including restaurants and other public places, and thought it was important that both Jamie and Maya are just 17, too young to vote in the election they're canvassing for, but nevertheless working tirelessly to help make a difference. They wanted to provide a road map for other teens who might be feeling frustrated and who are wondering how they can get involved, even on a local level.
I'm guessing Ms. Albertalli wrote all the Jamie chapters, and she mentions in interviews that parts of his personality and social anxiety mirrors her own. Ms. Saeed wrote the Aisha chapters (they alternate) wanted to really show the experience of a Pakistani American teen growing up in the USA today can look like, complete with racism, fear, bigotry, but also a sense of family and community and the joy that can be found in everyday life, and which can also offer resistance to racists and white supremacists everywhere.
That I read this novel while romance writers, readers, and others all over the internet were working together to fund-raise as much as possible for the upcoming Georgia run-offs, an election that is way more important than the one featured in this book, just seems to be another one of those strange coincidences this year has brought. Here's hoping that Georgia remains blue in the January senate elections as well.
Judging a book by its cover: The shades of blue that make out the majority of the background are really pleasing to me, and I love how the cover subtly reveals much of the development of the story and Jamie and Maya's relationship without really spoiling anything. It's one of the better examples of little cartoon people on the cover of novels.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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