Yes No Maybe So - Aisha Saeed and Becky Albertalli

 My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"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."

I've been reading this out loud with my husband, and we are both in love. I am a well-documented fan of Becky Albertalli, and her strength remains developing characters that pull you in and immediately have you falling in love. I really thought I had read Aisha Saeed before, but after double checking it turns out I haven't - better believe I'll be reading more of her stuff after this. Yes No Maybe So pulled me in right off the bat, and part of me wishes I wasn't reading this with someone else, because it's hard to put down. The husband really needs to get on my level when it comes to staying up late reading.

Things I loved: 

1. The characters. Basically everything about Maya, how up-front she was, that she calls it like she sees it with zero self-consciousness. I aspire to be more like her. Jamie pushing himself out of his comfort zone. As a fellow painfully awkward person, I saw a lot of myself in Jamie, and I wish I had his courage when I was in high school. Jamie's little sister. It thrills me that there are so many books coming out with confident, empowered young characters to serve as role models. 

2. The empowering message. Maya and Jamie are both too young to vote, but they're canvassing for the election, engaging with their representatives, and standing up for what they believe in. Sophie and her friends are even younger, but Sophie is researching the policies being introduced in her district, talking to her friends about what they think of those policies, and making her voice heard. It's easy to tell ourselves what we think doesn't matter and give up on trying to make a difference, and this book was a powerful reminder that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that our efforts to make a difference are the difference. 

3. Jamie's grandma. I know I already said the characters, but InstaGramm gets her own shout-out.

The one gripe I have is that I wish we dug a little deeper into Jamie and Maya's lives. We spend a lot of time with them both and get to know them and their banter pretty well, but despite a portion of the book being set during Ramadan and the majority of the book taking place leading up to Sophie's bat mitzvah, we really didn't get far beneath the surface of either teen's religious beliefs and upbringing. That's a huge part of their lives that basically just gets left out, and it would have added even more depth to the characters.

Guest Review - The Grace Year

This week I've got a special guest here to share her thoughts on The Grace Year by Kim Liggett. Just in case my review was not enough to convince you to give it a shot, my sister Molly Whoremon (friends call her Whore) dropped by to provide a second opinion.

From the cover (for anyone who needs a refresher):

"No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between."

💬    💬    💬

I honestly do not know how to even begin to review this book. I don't read synopses for books so I never really know what to expect, but as I made my way through this book it felt like a totally different experience than other books.

It's such a chilling tale of oppression, heartbreak, misunderstanding, love, fear, realization, and so many other emotions. I don't think I've ever been so moved and truly connected to a story before. I felt every emotion of the main character, Tierney, as she did and was briefly a part of her journey through this book.

I know this really doesn't explain what the book was about at all. I don't think I could ever do it justice. I will say though that nothing is ever what it truly seems. 🖤

10/10 would recommend.

The Grace Year - Kim Liggett

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That's why they're banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage.

But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life -  a society that doesn't pit friend against friend or woman against woman - but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it's not just the brutal elements they must fear. It's not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp gritty prose, The Grace Year is a story of survival and freedom, about fighting for what's right, no matter the cost, and finding home in the darkest of circumstances."

This book would be a great book to take camping, because it is intense.

Bahahahaha in tents. Get it?

Getting started, I got major Hunger Games/Handmaid's Tale vibes. Like if books could reproduce, this would be their baby. I loved both those books, so in my opinion that's a good thing. But if you hated either/both of them...consider yourself warned.

It takes a bit to establish the world, but before I could really even wrap my head around everything, it was off to the races. There were so many gut-punch moments, and just as many times where I got my hopes up only to have them smashed again. As the mystery of what happens during the grace year unfolded, I found myself reading on the edge of my seat, struggling to close the book anytime I needed to step away from reading and deal with real life. 

"In the county, everything they take away from us is a tiny death. But not here...the grace year is ours. This is the one place we can be free."

It is a mark of how terrible life in the county is that in spite of threat to life and limb, the grace year is still viewed as an opportunity for freedom. I mean sure, you literally might die, but at least there are no men to boss you around, treat you like shit, and abuse you. I think that realization was all the more powerful for me because of how often I saw my world in the pages of this book. It's dystopia...but it's real. The best (worst?) dystopias are, right?

This book was a roller coaster, equal parts inspirational and heartbreaking. You'll be thinking about it long after you read the last page.

Quiver - Julia Watts

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Libby is the oldest child of six, going on seven, in a family that adheres to the "quiverfull" lifestyle: strict evangelical Christians who believe that they should have as many children as God allows because children are like arrows in the quiver of "God's righteous warriors." Like the other families who adhere to this philosophy, Libby's family regards the father as the "Christian patriarch" and leader and the mother as the "helpmeet" who gives birth to, cares for, and homeschools the children. 

Meanwhile, Zo is the gender fluid offspring of Libby's new neighbors who have moved to the country from Knoxville in hopes of living a slower-paced, more natural life. 

Zo and hir family are as far to the left ideologically as Libby's family is to the right, and yet Libby and Zo, who are the same age, feel a connection that leads them to friendship—a friendship that seems doomed from the start because of their families' differences."

Libby Hazlett and Zo Forrester meet when Zo and hir family move to the farm next door to Libby's after the property had been empty for more than a year. The Hazlett family is fairly sheltered, primarily spending time with each other and with members of their church congregation, so right away Libby finds herself intrigued by the new family and, in particular, Zo. 

The two families have radically different ideologies--Libby's father is a strict disciplinarian, unwavering in his ultra conservative principles, while Zo's parents are liberal and much more relaxed in their parenting style. As it turns out, though, they also have a lot in common, and everyone seems to hit it off...until, that is, their fathers getting into an argument at an ice cream party and Mr. Hazlett decides that his family will no longer associate with the Forresters. 

Alas, the damage Mr. Hazlett fears has already been done. Spending time with Zo has gotten Libby thinking, and it turns out she may not be as content with her life as she previously convinced herself. Will she risk angering her father and turning her back on the God she is supposed to believe in to continue her friendship with Zo, or will she bend to her father's will and allow things to return to how they used to be?

This book is like nothing I have ever read. Coming from a family who, while not evangelical Christians, were close enough for some of Libby's experiences to hit close to home made this a difficult read, but seeing Libby and Zo learn more about each other, grow closer, and take the time to understand the other's perspective was worth the discomfort. I felt connected to both of them right away, and watching them grow throughout the book warmed my heart. Not only that, but I found myself unexpectedly tugged into the friendship between their two mothers, rooting for Mrs. Hazlett's happiness as she struggled through a difficult pregnancy and, after their husbands' fight, losing her new friend. Julia Watts did a remarkable job bringing the Hazlett and Forrester families to life, and if you're looking for a book that allows you to experience worlds you aren't familiar with, I can't recommend Quiver strongly enough.