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The Year of Yes
Like many young people everywhere, playwright Maria Headley had had her fill of terrible dates. Discouraged and looking for love, she decided the time had come for her to eliminate her own (clearly not adequately discriminating) taste from the equation. Instead-as she vowed to her roommates one frustrated morning-she would date every person who asked her out for an entire year, regardless of circumstances. It would be her Year of Yes.Leaving her judgment and predispositions at the door, our heroine ventured into a world suddenly brimming with opportunity and found herself saying yes to:l-The Microsoft Millionaire who still lived with his mom.l-An actor she had previously sworn off as gay.l-And finally the significantly older man, divorced with kids, who she never would have looked at twice before the Year of Yes-and to whom she is now happily married.Hilariously funny and ultimately inspirational, The Year of Yes will appeal to every person who has turned down a date for the wrong reason.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
22 people are currently reading
1719 people want to read
About the author
Maria Dahvana Headley
76 books1,611 followersMaria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times-bestselling author of, most recently, THE MERE WIFE (out July 17, 2018 from MCD/FSG). Upcoming in 2019 is a new translation of BEOWULF, also from FSG. As well, she is the author of the young adult skyship novels MAGONIA and AERIE from HarperCollins, the dark fantasy/alt-history novel QUEEN OF KINGS, the internationally bestselling memoir THE YEAR OF YES, and THE END OF THE SENTENCE, a novella co-written with Kat Howard, from Subterranean. With Neil Gaiman, she is the New York Times-bestselling co-editor of the monster anthology UNNATURAL CREATURES, benefitting 826DC.
Her Nebula,Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy award-nominated short fiction has appeared on Tor.com, and in The Toast, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, Subterranean Online, Glitter & Mayhem and Jurassic London's The Lowest Heaven and The Book of the Dead, Uncanny, Shimmer, and more. It's anthologized in Best American Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as the 2013 and 2014 editions of Rich Horton's The Year's Best Fantasy & Science Fiction, & Paula Guran's 2013 The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, in The Year's Best Weird Volume 1, ed. Laird Barron, and in Wastelands, Vol 2, among others. She's also a playwright and essayist.
She grew up in rural Idaho on a sled-dog ranch, spent part of her 20's as a pirate negotiator and ship marketer in the maritime industry, and now lives in Brooklyn in an apartment shared with a seven-foot-long stuffed crocodile.
Her Nebula,Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy award-nominated short fiction has appeared on Tor.com, and in The Toast, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, The Journal of Unlikely Entomology, Subterranean Online, Glitter & Mayhem and Jurassic London's The Lowest Heaven and The Book of the Dead, Uncanny, Shimmer, and more. It's anthologized in Best American Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as the 2013 and 2014 editions of Rich Horton's The Year's Best Fantasy & Science Fiction, & Paula Guran's 2013 The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, in The Year's Best Weird Volume 1, ed. Laird Barron, and in Wastelands, Vol 2, among others. She's also a playwright and essayist.
She grew up in rural Idaho on a sled-dog ranch, spent part of her 20's as a pirate negotiator and ship marketer in the maritime industry, and now lives in Brooklyn in an apartment shared with a seven-foot-long stuffed crocodile.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 278 reviews
September 4, 2015
I read this book when it first came out and totally enjoyed it. Funny it's getting so many unfavorable reviews -- do they even understand that the author was not sleeping with all her dates? Meanwhile a book like My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands is well-recieved. Huh?
My guess is that most people who judged this book didn't really read it. Personally I'm not comfortable rating books that I didn't read to the end. If I cannot finish a book, it simply means that the book is not for me. It's a chemistry issue. Just as, if I go out with a guy and don't like it, he is not meant for me -- it doesn't necessarily mean there is something fundamentally wrong with him. I wouldn't go out with him again; I wouldn't speak ill of him.
They say the books a person likes says a lot about him or her. True. But the books a person hates passionately might say even more. It says the person has a lot of emotional investment there.
We often talk about the importance of love and nonjudgmental attitude, but putting it in practice takes huge. I don't have the guts to do what the author did, but I can at least give her my applause.
My guess is that most people who judged this book didn't really read it. Personally I'm not comfortable rating books that I didn't read to the end. If I cannot finish a book, it simply means that the book is not for me. It's a chemistry issue. Just as, if I go out with a guy and don't like it, he is not meant for me -- it doesn't necessarily mean there is something fundamentally wrong with him. I wouldn't go out with him again; I wouldn't speak ill of him.
They say the books a person likes says a lot about him or her. True. But the books a person hates passionately might say even more. It says the person has a lot of emotional investment there.
We often talk about the importance of love and nonjudgmental attitude, but putting it in practice takes huge. I don't have the guts to do what the author did, but I can at least give her my applause.
August 27, 2007
So this books sounded good in theory. A woman decides that for one year she will accept date from anyone who asks her, man or woman, homeless crazy person, 60 year old man who does not speak English, it doesn't matter, she'll date them. I found the author annoying and a lot of the book ridiculous. I wanted to finish is (or maybe I just wanted it to end!) so I figured I'd give it 2 stars, but really not that great.
August 14, 2016
This book is 275 pages of masturbatory, pathological nonsense, an ill-conceived love letter to herself that should have stayed scrawled by ironic quill in Maria Dahvana Headley's coffee-stained moleskine journal. Maria Dahvana Headley has tried to convince the audience how incredible she is and succeeded only in irritating and enraging me.
This is the most self-indulgent, ridiculous, racist, appallingly idiotic, pretentious, and misguided memoir ever written. The shaky and dubious premise aside, the writing is simply awful and I can't imagine how this was ever picked up, let alone passed to press. There is no pace, no transition, no clear idea at any given moment what or when or why or how exactly anything is going on. By ranting and raving about all the unsuitable men she dated prior to saying "yes", she has failed to demonstrate that she has ever said "no" to anyone. However, despite reading the endless lists of her supposed virtues, supposed intellectualism, and rambling, foolish descriptions of her supposedly undeniable "exotic" looks ("olive skin and brown hair"; "curvy"; "uncontrollable smile"), I highly doubt that she ever managed to attract enough men for saying "no" to be noteworthy--which is doubtless how she found the time to pen this shit in the first place.
This is the most self-indulgent, ridiculous, racist, appallingly idiotic, pretentious, and misguided memoir ever written. The shaky and dubious premise aside, the writing is simply awful and I can't imagine how this was ever picked up, let alone passed to press. There is no pace, no transition, no clear idea at any given moment what or when or why or how exactly anything is going on. By ranting and raving about all the unsuitable men she dated prior to saying "yes", she has failed to demonstrate that she has ever said "no" to anyone. However, despite reading the endless lists of her supposed virtues, supposed intellectualism, and rambling, foolish descriptions of her supposedly undeniable "exotic" looks ("olive skin and brown hair"; "curvy"; "uncontrollable smile"), I highly doubt that she ever managed to attract enough men for saying "no" to be noteworthy--which is doubtless how she found the time to pen this shit in the first place.
February 3, 2008
The premise is very interesting: a young women decides that her standards for dating are too high (and thusly leading to her overall unhappiness and lack of love). She decides that, for a year, she will abandon all of her ideals and simply say 'yes' to every man (and woman!) who asks her out.
The problem with the books premise is, of course, a sort-of catch-22. In one sense, The Year of Yes is empowering to read as a single woman: to see another woman throw caution to the wind for love and happiness. In many ways, the book is essentially a celebration of 'singledom,' a way to let loose and disregard social expectations and simply date. However, the book also drives home precisely the message it tries to initially eschew: one can only be happy when 'paired' with another, in the most socially conservative of ways (monogamous, heterosexual, etc, etc).
Of course, the ending is predictable - and the author learns from her experience, grows as a person, finds true love, blah blah blah. By the time I was halfway through, her humor and charm had become stale (I mean really, how many Rilke jokes can you make? How much more can one drum-up their intellectual alienation? ...Puh-leeze), and most of the book read like a circuitous gossip rag.
The problem with the books premise is, of course, a sort-of catch-22. In one sense, The Year of Yes is empowering to read as a single woman: to see another woman throw caution to the wind for love and happiness. In many ways, the book is essentially a celebration of 'singledom,' a way to let loose and disregard social expectations and simply date. However, the book also drives home precisely the message it tries to initially eschew: one can only be happy when 'paired' with another, in the most socially conservative of ways (monogamous, heterosexual, etc, etc).
Of course, the ending is predictable - and the author learns from her experience, grows as a person, finds true love, blah blah blah. By the time I was halfway through, her humor and charm had become stale (I mean really, how many Rilke jokes can you make? How much more can one drum-up their intellectual alienation? ...Puh-leeze), and most of the book read like a circuitous gossip rag.
January 27, 2008
I enjoyed this book simply because it was so far outside of anything I would ever want to experience!
At the age of 20, the author was living in NYC. In the hopes of finding true love, she decided that for an entire year, she would go out with ANYONE who asked her. (She did put a FEW limits on this.)
She went out with some truly bizarre guys, some of whom you'd pretty much only meet in a place like NYC!
She did end up finding a prize, but not in New York.
The one thing I found disturbing was how quickly she hopped in the sack with some of these guys! Not that I'm a prude, but she could have used a tiny bit more discretion.
At the age of 20, the author was living in NYC. In the hopes of finding true love, she decided that for an entire year, she would go out with ANYONE who asked her. (She did put a FEW limits on this.)
She went out with some truly bizarre guys, some of whom you'd pretty much only meet in a place like NYC!
She did end up finding a prize, but not in New York.
The one thing I found disturbing was how quickly she hopped in the sack with some of these guys! Not that I'm a prude, but she could have used a tiny bit more discretion.
July 12, 2011
“I’d decided, in the moment, to do with men as I’d done with books. Read them all.” A promising premise, a lackluster execution. Maria is all of 21, from Idaho to NYC, and, alas, no true love yet! So for a year she decides to date any person that asks from cab driver to crazy. Clearly she is the wrong person to write this book—name-droppingly well-read, poor NYU theater student and apparently a smiling, short, heartbreaking beauty in NYC. Though she meets a terrible parade of neurotic guys, her own callousness, naiveté and superficiality is awkward and pitiful. She jogs through her year of weepy bad decisions at breakneck speed—why the rush? The purpose of shtick-lit is to narrate a process of growth and insight; Maria’s year is merely punctuated with mildly gossipy episodes, magical thinking and emotionally immature outbursts. Of value here is her sketch of undergrad (?) life at NYU, esp the pretentious theater scene there. NYC at its most spoiled. A storybook ending; is it deserved?
January 19, 2016
Maria Dahvana Headley's persona in this memoir, where she describes a year in which she goes out on dates with anyone who asks her, is at once charming and irritating. There's a series of really bad choices, only some of which she clearly identifies as such. At the same time, I found myself liking her. She seems fun, if immature. The time period she writes about is during her time as a college student at NYU, so her general immaturity and ego makes a good deal of sense. One thing that's a little disconcerting is that her writing has a certain sophistication that seems incongruous with so many other things about the memoir. Of course, she is writing a fews years after graduation when she has settled down with the man she eventually marries (and later divorces, but this is written in the honeymoon period of their relationship). I picked this up on a whim, after it came up in a search for the other Year of Yes that's currently on the best-seller list. There are lots of goofily inappropriate stories, which are far more sad and weird than titillating -- but if accounts of her wardrobe malfunctions and graphic descriptions of the fetishes of some of the men she dates are going to bother you, I would definitely avoid. There's a lot of filler in this book, and I think it would've been strengthened with a tighter edit.
December 31, 2015
In theory, The Year of Yes sounded interesting and inspiring. In practice, it's 300 pages of a 21-year old bemoaning her love life while attempting to be witty. The only time Maria felt real was when she reminded us that people do crazy things when they think they're in love and especially when that love is gone, and that it's normal, if not necessarily "okay." Otherwise, her self-alienation (too smart for the normal people, too "real" for the intellectuals, too normal for her classmates, too weird for anyone else leftover) quickly becomes old. Adding to that, the attempt at dating women felt awkwardly and callously portrayed - Zak is right when he points out that a woman who genuinely likes her probably doesn't want to be her experiment.
By the end, she finds love - not with someone she never expected, as she set out to possibly prove - but with the kind of perfect person she'd been aiming at all along. Story over. No lessons learned.
Listening to your young (21!), melodramatic friend talk about how she'll always be alone and miserable as she questions how many people it's okay to sleep with is one thing. Reading 300 pages of her monologue about it is another. At times entertaining and heartfelt, but never quite what it could have been.
By the end, she finds love - not with someone she never expected, as she set out to possibly prove - but with the kind of perfect person she'd been aiming at all along. Story over. No lessons learned.
Listening to your young (21!), melodramatic friend talk about how she'll always be alone and miserable as she questions how many people it's okay to sleep with is one thing. Reading 300 pages of her monologue about it is another. At times entertaining and heartfelt, but never quite what it could have been.
May 2, 2008
My book club chose this with the expectation of a fun, light read as we approach warmer weather.
At the time of this writing Headley, an NYU student, decides to spend a year saying "yes" to all offers of dates for a year. As one would guess, she ends up dating a lot of weirdoes. Headley's writing gave me the impression that she's a smart-alecky know-it-all who's desperately trying to flaunt how intelligent she is. She certainly lacks commonsense at every turn. Her over-the-top forced attempts at humorous writing would be better described as pithy, annoying, and not funny.
It's very rare that I don't finish a book, but I only made it to page 118 and the last half dozen pages of the ending through this stinker. I had predicted how it was going to end, and after reading the last six pages, I found that I had been accurate. I have no regrets about skipping the other 150 pages. I thought it best to end my suffering and move on.
At the time of this writing Headley, an NYU student, decides to spend a year saying "yes" to all offers of dates for a year. As one would guess, she ends up dating a lot of weirdoes. Headley's writing gave me the impression that she's a smart-alecky know-it-all who's desperately trying to flaunt how intelligent she is. She certainly lacks commonsense at every turn. Her over-the-top forced attempts at humorous writing would be better described as pithy, annoying, and not funny.
It's very rare that I don't finish a book, but I only made it to page 118 and the last half dozen pages of the ending through this stinker. I had predicted how it was going to end, and after reading the last six pages, I found that I had been accurate. I have no regrets about skipping the other 150 pages. I thought it best to end my suffering and move on.
November 12, 2008
I wasn't expecting much out of this book (grabbed it off my roommate's bookshelf as I needed something to read to sleep) but found the premise and the first 50 pages witty and amusing. And then things got bad. Her literary references, which announced "I'm a smart, well-read girl" and made me feel like part of the club, were not enough to prevent her cute tangents from becoming annoying, somewhat irrelevant, and a bit poorly written. She also sounded more and more naive and unforgivably air-headed with each date as her revelations feel more like something coming from a teenager, not a girl in her 20s. Sure there was a lot of commentary on sex (some quite perverse) but adding the word "penis" does not make a book grown-up. And the end, when she finally does meet Mr. Right, it was such a deus ex machina I think she even knew it.
For a much better book on a girl and her history of boyfriends, read "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing". That is what real relationships are about.
For a much better book on a girl and her history of boyfriends, read "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing". That is what real relationships are about.
July 14, 2008
I really liked the premise of this book. Maria is 21, in Nyc, and unhappy with her love life so she decides to say yes to every offer for a date for an entire year. True story! It's really funny and parts are sad, and overall you feel like you really get to know the author well and relate to her neuroses. Because I have too much time on my hands and am a dork, I made a soundtrack that would go well with the book and the character.
New Soul...Yael Naim
The First Cut Is The Deepest...Cat Stevens
Sleep to Dream...Fiona Apple
Creep...Radiohead
Highschool Lover...Air
Skeleton Song...Kate Nash
Mouthwash...Kate Nash
Walk on By...Dionne Warwick
Breathe Me...Sia
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow...Roberta Flack
Enjoy!
New Soul...Yael Naim
The First Cut Is The Deepest...Cat Stevens
Sleep to Dream...Fiona Apple
Creep...Radiohead
Highschool Lover...Air
Skeleton Song...Kate Nash
Mouthwash...Kate Nash
Walk on By...Dionne Warwick
Breathe Me...Sia
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow...Roberta Flack
Enjoy!
February 23, 2008
I so wanted to like this book. The concept is great and the author is a undoubtedly a great talent. However, she's also so freakin' in love with her giant literary brain and apparently hotness that I had a hard time liking her. That's a problem when you're reading a memoir. there were times when I laughed out loud but more often I was groaning inwardly at her meek tries to be charmingly self-depreciating. Self-depreciation only works when you actually think it's kinda true. Her attempts read like they were inserted as an after thought when her agent read it and said "you're coming across too self-obsessed. Can you bring it down a notch?"
August 4, 2008
Now I understand all those empty-headed women in college who majored in dating. Headley dates and dumps a long string of men, pausing only to cobble together a book full of her weirdest experiences, minus any self-reflection. It's freakily interesting, until she meets a man as ruthlessly self-absorded as she is, who dates and dumps her. The book then devolves into self-pitying garbage. Until, of course, she accepts a proposal from an older man, who rescues her from her self-imposed misery, poverty, and her failing grades at NYU. Run from this book while you can! It will depress the hell out of you.
January 19, 2011
This was a cute, fast read. Not to be confused with "Yes, Man", which was developed into a movie. This dealt with Headley's year of yes as it relates to dating in New York. Now, if you decide to read this book - please keep in mind that you are reading a work by a woman that loves witty wording, obtuse historical cross cultural references and attended NYU. So, if you don't like Gilmore Girls meets pretentious wittiness on a New York level - take a shot of Jack D before you sit down and start turning pages.
However, once you get into it, you'll be rewarded with a great concept, interesting characters, sexual and sensual escapades and touching honesty.
However, once you get into it, you'll be rewarded with a great concept, interesting characters, sexual and sensual escapades and touching honesty.
January 4, 2009
oh what a disappointment!
ok it's a memoir & not a self-help guide. but really, it's an unevenly written & erratically paced ride in an early twenty-something's love life. the year of yes focuses so much on the inner agonies & dramas of a young, self-involved college kid one cannot take it seriously. the book is not light & frothy reading. yet it doesn't offer substance either. instead, one feels like the author's tale of collegiate self-discovery & gradual dawning of self-awareness & increased sex life is being packaged as something meaty & enlightening.
but, it is not.
ok it's a memoir & not a self-help guide. but really, it's an unevenly written & erratically paced ride in an early twenty-something's love life. the year of yes focuses so much on the inner agonies & dramas of a young, self-involved college kid one cannot take it seriously. the book is not light & frothy reading. yet it doesn't offer substance either. instead, one feels like the author's tale of collegiate self-discovery & gradual dawning of self-awareness & increased sex life is being packaged as something meaty & enlightening.
but, it is not.
March 15, 2008
One of my college professors knows the author, so that's only 3 degrees of separation. And I like the idea of saying yes in life, even if I'm not dating.
I really enjoyed this humorous memoir. Lots of food for thought, particularly after listening to "Think Out Loud" on OPB about the recent trend of fictionalized memoirs. This is certainly written from the author's point of view with a healthy dose of poetic license, but I throughly enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed this humorous memoir. Lots of food for thought, particularly after listening to "Think Out Loud" on OPB about the recent trend of fictionalized memoirs. This is certainly written from the author's point of view with a healthy dose of poetic license, but I throughly enjoyed it.
March 16, 2016
It's not a big story or a happy story or even an important story or, I hope, a common story, but I liked it. Maria, after years of experiencing romance horror stories, decides to accept every invitation for a date for the next year. And she winds up on some doozies. Fun.
(I've decided to name a new genre, a genre that seems to be popular right now: the challenge book. Into this category, I'd place Julie and Julia, The Know-It-All, and this book. I like this genre.)
(I've decided to name a new genre, a genre that seems to be popular right now: the challenge book. Into this category, I'd place Julie and Julia, The Know-It-All, and this book. I like this genre.)
April 10, 2008
DISAPPOINTING. Great concept--a year of something, a quest...I like that kind of thing. But here's a secret for all you writers out there: I hate the narrator/author. I could care less if she finds happiness, she is weird and unsympathetic in every way. I feel a little sad about this whole thing.
December 21, 2008
This book is really badly written. Each sentence is crammed full of as many cutesy pop fiction references and elaborate adjectives as possible. It's very affected and it just ended up irritating me to the point where I only read 3/4 of the book before giving up. And I only spent $1.19 on it, too, because I got it from Goodwill. Don't bother.
May 1, 2011
Absolute rubbish! It sounded like it could be fun to read, but the writing rambled and the anecdotes just sounded far fetched and contrived. And being given life and love lessons by a 21 year old? All due respect to people of that age.....I was there too once. I thought I knew it all too. Boy was I wrong!! Don't waste your time or money on this!
November 2, 2014
Ugh. Not sure how she found enough guys to want to date her for an entire year, because she sounds like a very unappealing person. Couldn't finish.
January 20, 2011
This was entertaining, but I wasn't expecting going into it that the author would be so young. Throwing aside expectations at age 20 isn't as difficult or remarkable as someone undertaking the same project at, say, age 40, if for no other reason than a woman of the latter age probably wouldn't be asked out 12 times in every block of the city.
Her age was a big issue for me, throughout the book and especially at the end. Yeah, she fell in love... but it's really, really not the same to be 21 and meet your knight in shining armor after kissing a lot of frogs as it is when you're older and you kind of *have* to settle a little bit more.
Her age was a big issue for me, throughout the book and especially at the end. Yeah, she fell in love... but it's really, really not the same to be 21 and meet your knight in shining armor after kissing a lot of frogs as it is when you're older and you kind of *have* to settle a little bit more.
November 6, 2014
I've been feeling rather uninspired and closed off lately, and on the cover of the paperback version of this book, it said "this book makes you want to be young and in new york city," and that was exactly what I needed. I don't know that I'd go so extreme as to spend a year taking dates from every man I ever meet, but it definitely made me have an open mind about dates and dating. A lot of the dates she accepted didn't lead to romance, but a good story and a strange friendship, so perhaps I shall think twice instead of immediately turning people down like I often do...
September 5, 2015
Annoying New York/Manhattan vibe, another memoir by a young author with a gimmicky hook/premise: say yes to every date for a year. Unintentionally funny at times, as when making out with a homeless guy is rendered as some sort of epiphany experience.
September 4, 2007
This was a really quick, easy read about a girl who was fed up with her choices in men so she decided to accept every date offer she received for a year. It didn't have a lot of substance, but definitely made up for that with fun.
June 10, 2009
yes. i did read this because it started with a y. but this author is hysterical and likeable and though she went overboard on saying yes to people,her point about opening yourself up to unexpected people is a great one.
September 18, 2016
It's easy to skip bits in this book and not feel you have lost any content. In parts the story is uninteresting, other parts intelligent. It's a story of youth, of New York and of the sorrow that can exist in being single. Take it or leave it.
December 8, 2008
I thought this book was interesting, as this author accomplished something that I could never see myself doing, which is going out with anyone who asks, without using any real discretion.
April 6, 2009
I am loyally bound to give this 5 stars since I was childhood friends with the author! A hilarious read that is perfect for a rainy sunday or a really long soak in the tub.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 278 reviews