Scan barcode
A review by johnnybo_reads
Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli, Aisha Saeed
1.0
in vague description, it fell flat, boring, and was longer than it needed to be.
Maya: pakistani american muslim who initially goes canvasing for Rossum for a car
Jamie: jewish american
Jamie is a clutz with a white savior complex, Maya slightly selfish and likes people who save her. the writing felt 1 dimensional along with the characters. we don’t really see much about the characters personalities or interests, mainly just their religion. Maya pushed away her parents and her muslim identity for a boy, which is a trope i hate. Having a girl choose a white boy over her religion makes it seem that religious belief is an afterthought.
the majority of the novel takes place during Ramadan, and Maya’s muslim identity is referenced as least 5 times on one page. The fact Maya is supposedly pakistani isn’t talked about more than the one little time that she told Jamie about this. Jamie being jewish kinda felt like an afterthought to use for the romance part of the book? Towards the end Jamie’s sister, Sophie, comes out to Jamie as queer. This also felt as an afterthought to just throw in at the end. In all it felt like the authors were trying to represent too many identities at once and needed to pick something.
additionally, the romance felt extremely rushed. 70% of the novel focused on Maya & Jamie’s political canvassing journey, but the last ~150 pages randomly started pushing the romantic aspect that was pushed in the synopsis of the book, leaving it feeling rushed to be put into a perfect little bow. It was also way too long and easily could’ve been 100 pages less, a lot of the writing felt like filler
Maya: pakistani american muslim who initially goes canvasing for Rossum for a car
Jamie: jewish american
Jamie is a clutz with a white savior complex, Maya slightly selfish and likes people who save her. the writing felt 1 dimensional along with the characters. we don’t really see much about the characters personalities or interests, mainly just their religion. Maya pushed away her parents and her muslim identity for a boy, which is a trope i hate. Having a girl choose a white boy over her religion makes it seem that religious belief is an afterthought.
the majority of the novel takes place during Ramadan, and Maya’s muslim identity is referenced as least 5 times on one page. The fact Maya is supposedly pakistani isn’t talked about more than the one little time that she told Jamie about this. Jamie being jewish kinda felt like an afterthought to use for the romance part of the book? Towards the end Jamie’s sister, Sophie, comes out to Jamie as queer. This also felt as an afterthought to just throw in at the end. In all it felt like the authors were trying to represent too many identities at once and needed to pick something.
additionally, the romance felt extremely rushed. 70% of the novel focused on Maya & Jamie’s political canvassing journey, but the last ~150 pages randomly started pushing the romantic aspect that was pushed in the synopsis of the book, leaving it feeling rushed to be put into a perfect little bow. It was also way too long and easily could’ve been 100 pages less, a lot of the writing felt like filler