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A review by caughtbetweenpages
The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
2023 Reread --
I had a lot of fun with this book on revisiting it/rereading in preparation for the sequel. Izzy O'Neil is a great character to follow; I'm a fan of a "keep it chill", funny character slowly having their humor coping mechanism torn from them as their situation gets more dire, and that's very much the direction Izzy goes as the slut-shaming she's facing gets bigger, more public, and more damaging of her interpersonal relationships. I'm also thrilled that she's not a "perfect victim" and that she makes her fair share of very human/teenage fuck-ups (which she must atone for to the best of her ability), because being perfect shouldn't be a requirement for not having your bodily and sexual autonomy stripped from you and having your ability to control the narrative around you absolutely shat on by the cishetero-patriarchy.
At times, the humor got in the way of itself a little too much, to the point where less (fewer jokes) would've been more (a funnier reading experience) for my tastes. However, I have to give Steven points for keeping Izzy's narration and voice consistent throughout. You feel for her in TEOOO, you feel with her. Some of that is probably attributable to my being An AFAB Person Socialized as a Girl and thus being intimately familiar with all the ways we try to shame women for simply existing with bodies that men covet, but I think the empathy and compassion one feels for Izzy comes more from the fact that her situation really is just absolutely not okay.
The side characters never really reached a level of fleshed out that I like in my stories, with the possible exception of Ajita (the best friend) and maybe Danny (the other friend with the uncomfy crush). Carson is woefully underdeveloped, and I'm not sure his storyline with Izzy added much of value to the overall narrative. I found the painting he did of the Statue of Liberty being carried on the backs of Black slaves to have come out of nowhere and so on the nose that it was jarring, but I'm glad that there was at least A nod to the fact of intersectional marginalization and that Izzy's situation would've been compounded exponentially if she'd been a WOC. I think Ajita might have been a better character through which to address that idea, given her established relationship with Izzy and her more fleshed out character, but a story needs a romance, I guess? And since it's set in the US, where anti-Blackness poses an especially high threat even more so than anti-South Asian sentiments, perhaps that was the vision. Plus, Ajita being a lesbian and outed by Izzy plays a big role in the story, so perhaps Steven didn't want the two of them to have had existing tension between each other, so that their reconciliation could happen faster and more smoothly when it needed to? Much to think about.
A final gripe: this ought to have been set in the UK. I know it couldn't have, because the UK outclasses the US in terms of making revenge porn illegal, so the plot would've gone criminal very quickly, but Steven is a British writer and it shows. The slang, the sentence structure, the syntax... Izzy O'Neil is not a midwestern gal no matter how much she tries to be and it never stopped being jarring.
Overall though, I still flew through this book!
I had a lot of fun with this book on revisiting it/rereading in preparation for the sequel. Izzy O'Neil is a great character to follow; I'm a fan of a "keep it chill", funny character slowly having their humor coping mechanism torn from them as their situation gets more dire, and that's very much the direction Izzy goes as the slut-shaming she's facing gets bigger, more public, and more damaging of her interpersonal relationships. I'm also thrilled that she's not a "perfect victim" and that she makes her fair share of very human/teenage fuck-ups (which she must atone for to the best of her ability), because being perfect shouldn't be a requirement for not having your bodily and sexual autonomy stripped from you and having your ability to control the narrative around you absolutely shat on by the cishetero-patriarchy.
At times, the humor got in the way of itself a little too much, to the point where less (fewer jokes) would've been more (a funnier reading experience) for my tastes. However, I have to give Steven points for keeping Izzy's narration and voice consistent throughout. You feel for her in TEOOO, you feel with her. Some of that is probably attributable to my being An AFAB Person Socialized as a Girl and thus being intimately familiar with all the ways we try to shame women for simply existing with bodies that men covet, but I think the empathy and compassion one feels for Izzy comes more from the fact that her situation really is just absolutely not okay.
The side characters never really reached a level of fleshed out that I like in my stories, with the possible exception of Ajita (the best friend) and maybe Danny (the other friend with the uncomfy crush). Carson is woefully underdeveloped, and I'm not sure his storyline with Izzy added much of value to the overall narrative. I found the painting he did of the Statue of Liberty being carried on the backs of Black slaves to have come out of nowhere and so on the nose that it was jarring, but I'm glad that there was at least A nod to the fact of intersectional marginalization and that Izzy's situation would've been compounded exponentially if she'd been a WOC. I think Ajita might have been a better character through which to address that idea, given her established relationship with Izzy and her more fleshed out character, but
A final gripe: this ought to have been set in the UK. I know it couldn't have, because the UK outclasses the US in terms of making revenge porn illegal, so the plot would've gone criminal very quickly, but Steven is a British writer and it shows. The slang, the sentence structure, the syntax... Izzy O'Neil is not a midwestern gal no matter how much she tries to be and it never stopped being jarring.
Overall though, I still flew through this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexism, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Suicidal thoughts