This book was a breath of fresh air.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I was impressed by the author’s writing style throughout—like I would genuinely love to read another book by this author again in whatever genre because the writing appealed to me greatly.

You’ve Got The Map Backwards by Brian Usobiaga is a young adult contemporary novel following the story of two lifelong best friends, Aisha and Sarah. They’ve essentially known each other for their entire lives, all but joined at the hip, but now that they’re both young adults, their lives look quite dissimilar to one another’s.

Aisha is in college, struggling through a finance degree that she doesn’t really like. I also got the sense that Aisha was lonely, with not that many friends besides Sarah. She lives by herself in an off-campus apartment near her college and her father is implied to support her financially while not being emotionally there for her.

Sarah, on the other hand, is a high school drop-out. When we first meet her, she’s going through rehab to help with her alcoholism. Sarah seems like a lost soul, someone who wants to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. 

Sarah’s alcoholism is the driving force behind this novel as the two best friends must grapple with their tough realities all while navigating their friendship which has now entered some rocky, murky territory. It’s clear that Aisha wants the best for her friend. But does Sarah want the best for herself, too?

Spoilers Ahead

So as I was saying, the moment I started reading it, I was excited to see this whole novel through. There wasn’t really a moment where I felt that the plot was dragging along in any way.

I deeply empathized with both Aisha and Sarah throughout the novel. With Aisha, I felt like I could put myself in her shoes at times. Like she reminded me a bit of how I was in college a few years ago. I had an off-campus apartment (with roommates), I had a brief job at a bike shop where I would just stand around and try to act busy if there were no customers. And like Aisha, I also formed a romance with a cute guy from one of my classes, so there’s that. All that being said, I was quickly fond of Aisha.

Sarah was a more fascinating read for me because of the fact I couldn’t relate to her at first. She’s a young alcoholic who seemed to be taking advantage of Aisha’s empathy and kindness in the beginning, like staying at her apartment for some time because she’d be homeless otherwise, almost burning down her kitchen, taking her money to then go buy more alcohol at the store. Throughout the story, Sarah was just ambling through, trying to make sense of her life and survive in a world that more so saw her as a nuisance rather than a person with value. And that’s why her relationship with Aisha is so important because Aisha is the one who inspires Sarah to do better, to become better. Because otherwise, their friendship would not survive.

I was pleasantly surprised by the novel. Midway through, with Sarah’s continuous self-sabotaging, I thought that the two friends were going to end up cutting each other off entirely. But I’m so happy that they remained friends until the very end.

I love novels that make me reflect about certain life themes and I can gladly say that this one was one of them. Because I put myself in Aisha’s shoes and I thought, “you know what? I don’t really know if I could tolerate someone like Sarah around.”

It became clear at some point that, if Sarah continued with her destructive lifestyle choices, these two friends would be no more. And that was a painful realization because, throughout the novel, it’s reiterated time and time again how close they’ve always been, how they’ve always been there for each other. Losing lifelong friends is a heartbreaking ordeal—I myself have a friend I’ve known since first grade who I am still in contact with, and I’d be quite devastated if we suddenly went no-contact with each other.

This is why I’m so glad that Sarah, realizing what she’s doing to herself and how she’s hurting Aisha, decides to change her ways for the better this time. It’s alluded to that she has said this multiple times before, but now, it’s different. Now, she is really trying to change and improve her life choices. And you know what, good for her! The novel ends on such a promising, happy, and optimistic note and it made me so pleased to see Aisha and Sarah enjoying Thanksgiving together in their hometown.

I love how real the characters were written. I loved the friendship between Sarah and Aisha and how it prevailed until the very end. I loved the complexities of both their lives, because being a young adult is not always a smooth sailing affair. I would have loooved to have seen more of Tim throughout the novel because I adored the cute romance between him and Aisha and how he was persistent with her, even as Aisha was giving him such dry responses in the beginning. It reminded me so much of how I acted when I first met my husband back in college as well.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and would love to read more from this author in the future. Five stars!