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A review by joanna1905
Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli, Aisha Saeed
5.0
Is it any surprise at all that Becky and Aisha absolutely nailed this? (Nope, the answer is no. We knew they'd nail it and they did).
This story is so beautifully poignant to the current political climate and I genuinely think this book will help encourage young readers to engage in the next election and that's fantastic. It's all too common for the thoughts and feelings of young people re. politics to be dismissed because they're too young to vote and 'not educated enough to have an opinion'. However, this book turns that narrative on its head and has no qualms about encouraging young people to be passionate, educated and to engage.
The romance was super cute and very well-paced, and I loved that they were genuine friends before anything else. I also loved the idea of an inter-religion relationship since we don't see that much in YA.
I would have liked a tad more LGBTQ+ rep but there definitely was still some rep which was very well done. I particularly loved Jamie's little sister having a crush on a girl because, despite the fact that many queer people know there queer around age 12, we don't see that represented very often in books. So it was a really refreshing addition.
I found the parents a bit infuriating at times but I guess that's parents for you, I also wish Jamie didn't forgive Gabe quite so fast though. Considering he didn't really apologize or even realise he did anything wrong I would have liked it to been drawn out a chapter or two. He did something pretty messed up to two vulnerable teenagers and didn't ever really acknowledge it.
All in all, I adored this book, I think I do prefer Becky's Creekwood series (especially because more queer) but I definitely liked this more than 'What If It's Us' (which I still liked but not as much as these other books). The political discussions in this book were just so well done, as were the discussions of religion. 100% recommend this book!
This story is so beautifully poignant to the current political climate and I genuinely think this book will help encourage young readers to engage in the next election and that's fantastic. It's all too common for the thoughts and feelings of young people re. politics to be dismissed because they're too young to vote and 'not educated enough to have an opinion'. However, this book turns that narrative on its head and has no qualms about encouraging young people to be passionate, educated and to engage.
The romance was super cute and very well-paced, and I loved that they were genuine friends before anything else. I also loved the idea of an inter-religion relationship since we don't see that much in YA.
I would have liked a tad more LGBTQ+ rep but there definitely was still some rep which was very well done. I particularly loved Jamie's little sister having a crush on a girl because, despite the fact that many queer people know there queer around age 12, we don't see that represented very often in books. So it was a really refreshing addition.
I found the parents a bit infuriating at times but I guess that's parents for you, I also wish Jamie didn't forgive Gabe quite so fast though. Considering he didn't really apologize or even realise he did anything wrong I would have liked it to been drawn out a chapter or two. He did something pretty messed up to two vulnerable teenagers and didn't ever really acknowledge it.
All in all, I adored this book, I think I do prefer Becky's Creekwood series (especially because more queer) but I definitely liked this more than 'What If It's Us' (which I still liked but not as much as these other books). The political discussions in this book were just so well done, as were the discussions of religion. 100% recommend this book!