Books I've Read: How Maya Got Fierce

 

This was a fun one.  Kind of a fantasy, but a fun kind of fantasy based in the contemporary world.

Maya Gera is the daughter of California garlic famers and knows her future is to run the family farm once her parents retire.  To ensure she's skilled up to do that, this summer she's heading to an agricultural college in New Jersey to begin her journey.  And maybe to meet a nice Indian boy.

Unfortunately garlic, cow camp and a Sikh boyfriend are not what Maya really wants.  Since her older cousin bought her a subscription to Fierce magazine, Maya has wanted nothing but to work there.  She has hundreds of ideas about how to improve representation and to get more diverse voices heard.

So it's a dream come true when she discovers her cousin's live-in girlfriend is working at Fierce. The same cousin she's staying with while at cow camp.  At first Maya just spends weekends at Fierce, helping out in the massive fashion wardrobes.  She adores it - far more than cow camp where the only good thing is the handsome young dude from a winery.  A guy she realises she's beginning to crush on despite promising herself she wouldn't go ga ga over any boys.

When an intern position comes up at Fierce, Maya decides to do something for herself for once and applies.  She's thrilled to get the role and ditches cow camp in favour of the magazine.  She'll explain it all to her parents later, once she's rocked the position hard enough that they can't get mad about it.  

When she starts at the magazine, she discovers she might be in a little over her head.  All the paperwork says she's an assistant editor.  And the cute intern is now working for her?

As she juggles more lies than she can count, Maya somehow manages to make an impression at Fierce.  All she needs now is to get the guy too.  And make sure her family never hears about any of this.

There's nothing very realistic about this book, but who hasn't dreamed about landing a dream job out of the blue?  And as a seventeen year old?  It was a quick, fun read and I found myself rooting for Maya even as she got more and more over her head.

So I'd recommend this one.  Especially if you're looking for something fun to get away from the world's usual gloom and doom.  I could picture this as a movie, kind of in the same vein as something like 13 Going on 30. 

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb (which doesn't quite match the book I read, but whatever...):


The Bold Type meets Younger in How Maya Got Fierce by Sona Charaipotra, a YA fish-out-of-water contemporary novel!

Ever since she was little, farmer's daughter Maya Gera has known what her future holds.

The heiress to a mini garlic empire in the heart of Gilroy, California, she's meant to be a good Indian girl -- which means agriculture school, an MBA, and settling down with a suitable Sikh boy.

So spending her 17th summer at cow camp in New Jersey is a really big deal. Farm kids nationwide convene to learn to milk cows, shuck corn, and, uh, form 'strategic alliances.' But when Maya gets kicked out of camp after an expensive accident -- yes, it involves a boy -- she scrambles to save face and keep her parents from finding out. Hard to do when she owes the school thousands of dollars.

Desperate to earn enough to pay off her mistake, Maya interviews for an internship at Fierce, a fashion magazine she's been obsessed with forever. When she lands a gig as assistant features editor, it's a New York City dream come true. Especially because she rocks at it.

But it might soon become her worst nightmare -- because the Fierce folks think she's 26.

And just wait until her parents find out.