The Year of Yes

A funny, poignant memoir recounting a year of saying 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:

• The Microsoft Millionaire who still lived with his mom.
• An actor she had previously sworn off as gay.
• 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.

"When Idaho-born Headley, a 20-year-old NYU drama student, laments, 'I felt like I'd dated and then hated every man in Manhattan,' she thinks perhaps she's too critical. So she 'decided that I would say yes to every man who asked me out on a date.' It sounds disastrous, even scary, though she chose to exclude the drunk, the drugged, the violent, and cheating husbands. The first date was the Puerto Rican handyman who came to fix the toilet with his daughter in tow, the second a 40-year-old who spoke only Polish. One took her to a strip joint, one wanted his penis bitten, one was a woman and one asked her to marry him on the first date. One of the nicest turned out to be the 70-year-old Latino who made obscene sucking noises and claimed to have 11 children. The one Headley got a crush on turned out to be 'mostly gay.' And then what happened? Believe it or not — true love. Reader, she married him. It's sheer chick fluff, but amusing, with names changed 'to protect the indignant, the infantile, and, of course, the innocent.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Maria Headley spent a year accepting every date she was offered, and ended up with a story about what happens when you say yes to the universe. This book is painfully funny and tender, and so magical it will make you want to be young again, and in such a city." Haven Kimmel

"Snappy and readable, Headley's fun memoir will be sought out by singletons everywhere." Booklist

"With the author torturing herself with the gamut of New York City's available men, and even after she connects with her future husband, the entire zany quest seems hollow and tragic, especially for the reader." Library Journal

"The only thing missing when I was done was an overflowing ashtray and a hangover the size and color of Detroit. Maria is my kind of girl." Laurie Notaro

"Headley's memoir is charming, hyperliterate...and even laugh-out-loud funny. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly

Hilariously funny and ultimately inspirational, this formerly single girl's memoir recounts a year of saying "yes" — for 12 months, she dated every person who asked her out, regardless of circumstances.

The "poignant and hilarious" (Newsday) story of one woman's twelve months of dating anyone — absolutely anyone — who asked her out

At some point every woman who's single (and not by choice) wonders whether she's not somehow responsible for her predicament. Is she too choosy? Should she have given that guy with the combover and the mother issues a shot? Maybe three full feet isnt too much of a height difference . . .? Maria Dahvana Headley had been there, cherry-picking the men shed dated based on a variety of criteria, and clearly it wasnt getting her anywhere.

The Year of Yes is the hilarious and hopeful account of Headley's quest to find a man she could stand (for longer than a couple of hours). Frustrated by her own ineffective taste, she resolved to leave her love life up to fate, dating anyone who asked her: homeless men, a millionaire, several non-English speakers, a mime, and even two women. And finally, one man whose baggage would have disqualified him in any other year . . . but this was the Year of Yes, when Headley would finally discover what was really important.

Maria Dahvana Headley is an author and playwright who lives in Seattle with her husband and family.