You’ve Got the Map Backwards by Brian Usobiaga

You’ve Got the Map Backwards by Brian Usobiaga
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A year removed from high school, lifelong friends Aisha Kinseya and Sarah Piedmont find themselves lost in different places. Struggling with depression, Sarah’s growing dependency on alcohol lands her in rehab. Aisha, in the midst of her second year of college, finds herself increasingly isolated as a crippling anxiety begins to overwhelm her.

Finding solace in familiarity, the two girls reunite only to have their friendship fracture. As they search for answers, Aisha and Sarah discover how relationships can change. How knowing someone your entire life doesn’t mean you know them forever, and how, if you want to grow, there are certain things you must leave behind.

Change is an inevitable part of life.

One of the hardest things about the transition from high school to early adulthood is how much even the closest friendships can evolve as everyone goes off in different directions. This isn’t a topic I’ve seen covered that often in the young adult genre, and I hope it will spark a trend. Aisha and Sarah were both caught off-guard by the changes to their friendship and didn’t know how to react to them at first which was something I could relate to. I nodded along as they realized their lives were taking them on separate paths and wondered if they’d figure out new ways to relate to each other now that they didn’t have the same classes, teachers, goals, or daily routines to shape their experiences.

It would have been helpful to have more details in this story. I found it difficult to picture things like the characters, settings, or conversations because of how little time was spent showing the audience what the characters were like or how they interacted with each other and their environments. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, this was an impediment to that as my imagination could only fill in so many details about what it would be like to walk alongside Sarah and Aisha as they adjusted to their first taste of adulthood.

With that being said, I did appreciate having protagonists who didn’t know for sure what their next steps were going to be. Many books in this genre include characters who have elaborate plans for the future they’ve been dreaming about for years. While that’s nice to read about, too, not everyone has a ten-step plan for success so early in life, and I found these characters’ uncertainty refreshing. Life is an adventure, so there is something to be said for being open to multiple possibilities while one tries to figure out what they really want.

You’ve Got the Map Backwards made me smile.