Waarom je niet zomaar moet stemmen waar je ouders op stemmen – Titia Hoogendoorn & Nienke Schuitemak

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The elections to the House of Representatives were scheduled again this year. A moment in which you, as a citizen, have a voice in the direction that politics will take for the upcoming years. I have always thought it important to use my voice and have cast a vote every year since I was 18. I think it's really stupid if you don't use this voice because it's not obvious that you can vote.

Despite this, it was not always very clear to me what I was going to vote for. Of course I have always filled in online voting guides and casted a vote based on that and my gut feeling. But I was not completely 100% clear. Until I saw this book on Blossom Books' Instagram this spring. A thin and easy book to read with the necessary humor.

The book discusses why you should vote, what happens in the House of Representatives, how you determine who to vote for, a number of important and relevant themes, smart voting, going to the polls, and what to do next.

I thought it was a nice book to read and to give me some more clarity about politics in the Netherlands. That's why this book gets 5 stars from me! I found it easy to read and the humor made the subject manageable. I also learned things that I had heard about, but which I didn't quite know what it was exactly. Furthermore, a number of relevant and important topics are discussed that are now important. I think this makes the booklet less relevant for the next elections. However, the concept remains well thought out, and it is nice that such books exist to create interest and awareness about politics.

I hope that this book will encourage many young people (and perhaps also some older people, I'm not that young anymore either haha) to vote, also in the future. It would be good if the relevant topics for now might be replaced by important themes that will play a role at the next elections, so that the book also remains relevant in future elections. Because even then it is nice to be able to go through a relatively thin book and learn more about politics.