As the author of dark comedies such as Kill the Boy Band and No Good Deed, as well as horror novels and absurdist suspense thrillers like The Mary Shelley Club and Lord of the Fly Fest, author Goldy Moldavsky is no stranger to genre-hopping. Her latest release, Just Say Yes, is further proof of that. In this 2006–set rom-com, Peruvian American 17-year-old Jimena Ramos can’t wait to graduate high school and make her mark on the world. But when she learns that her family has overstayed their visas, she determines that her only solution is to marry. Securing a husband turns out to be harder than she anticipated—especially when she finds herself drawn to her neighbor Vitaly, whose own hang-ups regarding marriage and plans to move overseas ruin any chance of romance before it can even begin. Moldavsky spoke with PW about growing up as an immigrant in the early aughts, her internal conflict surrounding her desire to write across genres, and pivoting to more straightforward romances.
In your PW q&a about The Mary Shelley Club, you mentioned that you were working on a romantic dramedy. Is Just Say Yes the book you were referencing?
Yes, this was the book I was talking about. I started jotting down my first notes for it in 2017, but it took me a long time to figure out what to do with Just Say Yes. I actually pitched this and The Mary Shelley Club to my agent, Jenny Bent, at the same time. Jenny thought that The Mary Shelley Club would have broader appeal and would do better overseas, because Just Say Yes is a very American story, so I held off on this one for a while. After I was done with The Mary Shelley Club, I came back to Just Say Yes, gave Holt a one-sentence pitch, and they were like, “Yes, go for it.” I then had to very quickly figure out where the story was even going because now I was on a deadline.
Why did you set Just Say Yes in 2006, as opposed to when ICE raids really started picking up in the U.S. in early 2020, or in present day?
It was a very deliberate decision on my part. In fact, my editor was trying to convince me to set it in more modern times, instead of making it a period piece. But this takes place before President Obama came into office—before he proposed DACA, before the DREAM Act really got moving, and before there was actually some positive legislation for DREAMers, which didn’t happen until around 2008. It was after that, that everything started changing.
Of course, it hasn’t been smooth sailing all the way; we had President Trump, and the government has since repealed DACA. But after 2008, I think the curtains were pulled back and there wasn’t as much shame surrounding undocumented immigration, and DREAMers weren’t living so much in the shadows anymore. There was a lot more activism, a lot more representation, and people weren’t afraid to say who they were and to demand change. But before DACA, when I was growing up, it was still really, really shameful, and really scary to “out yourself,” so to speak, as an undocumented immigrant. So, I wanted to set the story in that shadowy, hazy time period where Jimena is afraid to tell anybody, even her best friend, about being undocumented, because people’s thoughts on the matter were so black-and-white. It was definitely important for me to set it at a time where opinions were a lot harsher for undocumented kids.
I think if Just Say Yes was set in 2020 or 2024, it would be a completely different story. It would probably end on page one: Jimena would find out she isn’t documented, she would tell everyone, and she would be out there advocating for herself.
All your published works so far have been YA horror and thrillers of the psychological and absurdist variety. Did that present any challenges for you when writing a more straightforward rom-com?
As a consumer of media, I love rom-coms; I don’t only watch horror or only read thrillers. I like to have a little bit of everything, which is the way I like to approach my writing as well. At this point, I’m just combining everything I’ve ever done—just sticking it in a book and seeing how it shakes out.
But when I was a baby writer, I had a lot of internal conflict about what genre or what lane I should stick to, because I do like to cross genres a lot. I was nervous to see if I could be successful with one book being a comedy, and then the next one being a thriller, and the next one being horror, and then jumping into rom-coms. I had asked Jenny for some advice on this, and she told me that she’s not going to hinder my artistic process and that I needed to write whatever I felt like writing. And that’s how Just Say Yes came about.
Can you talk about what you’re working on next, such as your upcoming middle grade detective series opener, Bubblegum Shoes and the Case of the Contraband Closet, which is slated for 2025?
I’m working on two middle grade books: one for HarperCollins and one for Random House. My HarperCollins book is loosely based on my own childhood up in the Catskills, which is a very Jewish experience and perspective to have. The one with Random House, Bubblegum Shoes and the Case of the Contraband Closet, is totally different. It’s about a group of girls—think Baby-Sitters Club, but they’re private investigators—and they’ve got a big case on their hands.
And then my next YA is another one with Holt that’s going to be a romance horror. It’s set in a really opulent sort of garden—think Saltburn—and there’s a lot of magical, twisted, scary things going on, with a love story at the center of it all. It’s probably my most ambitious work yet.
Just Say Yes by Goldy Moldavsky. Holt, $22.99 Jan. 30 ISBN 978-1-250-86324-9; $13.99 paper ISBN 978-1-250-86323-2
