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.
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 crush of the century is another thing entirely. (Pub Date: Feb 4, 2020)
A very politically-minded story of a romance born in a weird situation.
3.5.
Maya and Jamie knew each other as kids but it's been many years ever since and now they're stuck together, not so willingly helping on a political campaign.
This wasn't my first Albertalli, it wasn't even the first I read that she has a coauthor but it was the first book I read by Aisa Saeed and now I'm very curious about her other works. The story goes a little like What if It was Us, that Albertalli coauthored with Adam Silvera.
We get alternating points of views, but now with many more differences between the protagonists. Jamie is Jewish and very into the campaign, but he's not good at all dealing with other people. Maya, yes a girl for this is not LGBT romance, is Muslim, going through Ramadan so not even a bit in a good mood most of the time and her parents have just sprung on her they're separating. To make things worse, she'll have to accompany Jamie in political canvassing if she wants a car.
I think having four hands write was the only way this story could exist. The contrast of culture, living and beliefs between the two kept me interested all the way. But they were also very cute in the way they noticed things. Even though, yes, we have a lot of social issues discussed, we still get the romance to be in the spotlight, and this couple was just golden.
Onto where this failed... it was still too much politics. It's not an actual campaign, I don't think they mean to campaign for any existing candidate (though as you can guess, the speech is basically for the Democratic party). But if you're here for the romance, it's not about politics you want to read. As I said the romance does have the spotlight, but it is shared. The result was that the book got super long and after half of it you're kind of fed up with the campaigning topic. And I -was- interested in how volunteering worked!
And I may be blaming on the campaign the fact that also after half or maybe during the last third of the book there's too much angst for the couple. I do remember having more patience for that—perhaps even enjoying—when younger, so it could be that I'm not the target audience, but I was very irritated at a point.
So what the book needed wasn't really to tone down on the politics, because the discussions it brought were enriching and I got to learn the dynamics of volunteering to a local campaign, that's gold! What it really needed was editing out a bit, make it quicker to read.
I do feel you'll enjoy it if you don't mind that kind of discussions—I love them! But I have friends who'd never touch this book because of that, so here's my warning. It's a lovely, instigating story with very well built characters. It's not for everyone knowing to talk about important issues and still building a cute romance and the two managed it.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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