Just Say Yes
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A YALSA Best YA Fiction of 2025
An NPR Best Book of 2024
From the New York Times–bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky comes a charming rom-com about your average high school senior in search of . . . a husband?
Seventeen-year-old Jimena Ramos is your typical teenage New Yorker—dazzling, fearless, and determined. When she discovers she's been living her life undocumented, she decides there's only one way to keep it on track: marry an American.
Maybe Jimena can find a husband on a dating app?
Maybe she should try approaching this marriage thing like a business deal?
Or maybe her new starry-eyed activist friend can help . . .
Meanwhile, the only person she can trust with her secret is Vitaly, her overachieving and adorkable next-door neighbor and friend. Vitaly makes it clear he's not a candidate for a green card marriage though. He has his own plans for the future and won't let anything derail them. But as Jimena and Vitaly confide in each other, sparks fly, and their feelings for each other become undeniable.
Jimena faces an impossible choice–continue to pursue a secure future in the only home she's ever known, or risk it all for real love?
Filled with humor, electric chemistry, and high stakes, this is perfect for fans of The Proposal and The Sun is Also a Star.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 2006, 17-year-old Peruvian American Jimena Ramos, a high school senior, can't wait to attend a great college and make her mark on the world. But after police break up a rooftop party and escort Jimena home, her terrified mother confesses that the family has overstayed their visas after emigrating from Peru. Jimena believes that her future is forfeit—unless she becomes an American citizen. Her only solution, she feels, is to marry, but finding a husband turns out to be harder than she anticipated; online ads and desperate dating get her nowhere. She is eventually drawn to her Russian American neighbor Vitaly, also 17, whose own hang-ups regarding marriage and determination to move to England ruin any chance of romance there. Still, Jimena's growing feelings for Vitaly persist, forcing her to choose between pursuing real, authentic love or chasing after her carefully planned future at the expense of her heart. Though uneven pacing and occasionally flat dialogue lessen the impact of this promising concept, Moldavsky (Lord of the Fly Fest) deftly elevates the popular marriage of convenience trope by critically highlighting the insurmountable odds of the U.S. immigration system in this timely read. Ages 14–up.
