A review by lawbooks600
Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli, Aisha Saeed
3.0
Representation: Asian main character, Jewish main character, side Asian character
Trigger warnings: Racism, antisemitism, sexism, harassment
Read this review for context: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5336250779
6/10, only a few days ago I added this to my list and I hoped that it would be an interesting read, today I finally read this 400-page book and I must admit this wasn't the book I was expecting it to be, what I thought was going to be just a romance turned out to a political, American and preachy kind of book which reminisces of an earlier book I read so where do I even begin? It starts with the two main characters Jamie who is a Jew and Maya who is Asian and has a different religion, immediately there is an election coming up soon and for some reason the book decides to bring up the term "canvassing" and I had no idea what it meant, I had a hunch that it meant campaigning and when I searched it up I was proven correct so there's that. The tensions start to build as the election draws closer and that's where things start to get preachy for starters there is this meme called Fifi the dog and some right-wing extremists used that first on social media and then when they saw stickers that said something along the lines of "Vote Rossum!" they replaced it with a Fifi sticker and that's atrocious enough as it is. I had some thoughts about some irritating aspects of the book such as why did it have to be that drawn-out, tedious and stretch over 400 pages? Why did the book have to shove messages like the fact that discrimination is horrific over and over into my head when I already know that and also it was bothersome that this book aged like milk. There's no mention of social media platforms like Discord but maybe that was more obscure back then compared to right now, Twitter is now called X but it's still called Twitter in the book and Super Mario Odyssey was the hit game in the past but now I don't remember anyone playing it anymore. At least the Nintendo Switch didn't age yet. The situation gets direr when a new law is coming called H.B. 28 which long story short is a racist law and despite all the campaigning efforts the results came in and the Republicans barely won over the Democrats with Newton being the new governor of Georgia. He passed the new law much to the characters' disappointment and this wraps the book up bittersweetly. I couldn't relate to that part since I don't live in the United States of America and politics work differently, where I live there is a Prime Minister, premiers, mayors and other changes. Oh wait, I have one more part I must talk about, the romance and I found more problems with that as well which didn't help the book as a whole, first off are the main characters Jamie and Maya, I could not feel anything for them as they developed an attraction and even then that was put to the side most of the time and I didn't like that Maya had to essentially convert her religion to be with Jamie who is a Jew more. That's a bit overkill and problematic and if you like romances you can try Where the Road Leads Us by Robin Reul.
Trigger warnings: Racism, antisemitism, sexism, harassment
Read this review for context: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5336250779
6/10, only a few days ago I added this to my list and I hoped that it would be an interesting read, today I finally read this 400-page book and I must admit this wasn't the book I was expecting it to be, what I thought was going to be just a romance turned out to a political, American and preachy kind of book which reminisces of an earlier book I read so where do I even begin? It starts with the two main characters Jamie who is a Jew and Maya who is Asian and has a different religion, immediately there is an election coming up soon and for some reason the book decides to bring up the term "canvassing" and I had no idea what it meant, I had a hunch that it meant campaigning and when I searched it up I was proven correct so there's that. The tensions start to build as the election draws closer and that's where things start to get preachy for starters there is this meme called Fifi the dog and some right-wing extremists used that first on social media and then when they saw stickers that said something along the lines of "Vote Rossum!" they replaced it with a Fifi sticker and that's atrocious enough as it is. I had some thoughts about some irritating aspects of the book such as why did it have to be that drawn-out, tedious and stretch over 400 pages? Why did the book have to shove messages like the fact that discrimination is horrific over and over into my head when I already know that and also it was bothersome that this book aged like milk. There's no mention of social media platforms like Discord but maybe that was more obscure back then compared to right now, Twitter is now called X but it's still called Twitter in the book and Super Mario Odyssey was the hit game in the past but now I don't remember anyone playing it anymore. At least the Nintendo Switch didn't age yet. The situation gets direr when a new law is coming called H.B. 28 which long story short is a racist law and despite all the campaigning efforts the results came in and the Republicans barely won over the Democrats with Newton being the new governor of Georgia. He passed the new law much to the characters' disappointment and this wraps the book up bittersweetly. I couldn't relate to that part since I don't live in the United States of America and politics work differently, where I live there is a Prime Minister, premiers, mayors and other changes. Oh wait, I have one more part I must talk about, the romance and I found more problems with that as well which didn't help the book as a whole, first off are the main characters Jamie and Maya, I could not feel anything for them as they developed an attraction and even then that was put to the side most of the time and I didn't like that Maya had to essentially convert her religion to be with Jamie who is a Jew more. That's a bit overkill and problematic and if you like romances you can try Where the Road Leads Us by Robin Reul.