Heyyyyyy! I’m back. Long time no post. I JUST finished finals last week at the time of writing this, so I figured I would let this be my first post back, and see how much reading I could get done in the meantime. Please enjoy my small part in this awesome blog tour. 🙂
Bitingly funny and shockingly relevant, The Exact Opposite of Okay is a bold, brave, and necessary read for fans of Louise O’Neill and Jennifer Mathieu. Eighteen-year-old IzzyO’Neill knows exactly who she is—a loyal friend, an aspiring comedian, and a person who believes that milkshakes and Reese’s peanut butter cups are major food groups. But after she’s caught in a compromising position with the son of a politician, it seems like everyone around her is eager to give her anew label: slut. Izzy is certain that the whole thing will blow over and she can get back to worrying about how she doesn’t reciprocate her best friend Danny’s feelings for her and wondering how she is ever going to find a way out of their small town.
Only it doesn’t. And while she’s used to laughing her way out of any situation, as she finds herself first the center of high school gossip and then in the middle of a national scandal, it’shard even for her to find humor in the situation. Izzy may be determined not to let anyone else define who she is, but that proves easier said than done when it seems like everyone has something to say about her
Laura Steven is an author, journalist, and screenwriter from the northernmost town in England. The Exact Opposite of Okay, her YA debut, was published by Egmont in March 2018. The sequel, A Girl Called Shameless, will follow in 2019. As well as mentoring aspiring authors through schemes like Pitch Wars, Laura works for Mslexia, a non-profit organisation supporting women writers. She graduated with Distinction from her MA in Creative Writing in 2017, and her TV pilot Clickbait–a mockumentary about journalists at a viral news agency–was a finalist
in British Comedy’s 2016 Sitcom Mission. Laura is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary and Media Inc.Website: https://www.laura-steven.com/
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17054622.Laura_StevenTwitter:
https://twitter.com/laurastevenInstagram:
https://www.instagram.com/laurasteven/
So… I have a lot of thoughts. Firstly–disclaimer!!! This book covers some pretty intense stuff. Innuendos and such aside, the book itself is about trauma, revenge porn, emotional abuse… a lot of stuff that, while important to discuss, is very heavy. This is definitely a book for an older and/or more mature audience (aka–tween Maddie would not have done well reading this).
Okay! Anyways! As I said, this book deals with a lot of heavy topics. Overall, it delivered the message very well, especially with the format. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the “blog-post” format. And, in terms of a plot line, I found the fact the POV was a blog a bit dd. At one point a character mentioned he had “found her blog,” but other than that, the fact she was publishing all of it for others to read was… never discussed? I found that a bit confusing, and I may have just missed that memo.
HOWEVER, that is beside the point, as I actually really quite liked this format. It was like a journal entry but written more for an audience. It allowed the POV to reflect on what had happened whilst still being in the moment. There were points when the POV cut from telling the story because something was happening to her whilst she was writing. I had never read anything with this format before. This format delivered the very serious topic in a way that allowed the reader to see into the soul of the person most affected by it. Obviously, a traditional first person POV would do the same thing, but this way it was a nice combination of telling and showing, which allowed the story to be delivered in an impactful way.
Although the POVs humor was a bit over the top for me at times, it was accurately the timbre of a teenage girl who was still figuring herself out. The POV grew and changed quite a bit through the story, and we saw the situation solely through her eyes, allowing her growth and change in perspective to be very obvious.
Overall, this is not the kind of book I would traditionally pick up, and it was hard to read the story of someone going through such a rough patch; however, I think this book is one of the ones that allows people to see the way actions, whether big/small, intentional/otherwise, affect those around us. This is important stuff, my friends.
Maddie
PS– Make sure to check out the rest of the tour and the giveaway down below! <3
TOUR SCHEDULE: http://fantasticflyingbookclub.blogspot.com/2019/05/tour-schedule-exact-opposite-of-okay.html
GIVEAWAY Prize: Win (1) of (2) copy of THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF OKAY by Laura Steven (US Only): http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86373/