Because the way the world treats teenage girls – as sluts, as objects, as bitches – is not okay.
Imagine you are a teenage girl around the age of 17. High school soon will be over and your whole life is waiting for you. In the meantime, you just enjoy life to the fullest. Try not to think about the fact that you probably will not go to college because you have no money and a scholarship is nowhere on the horizon. That is what the protagonist of this book has to deal with. Her parents are also dead and her grandma cannot work more as she already does. Welcome to Izzy’s life.
Laura Steven’s debut novel The Exact Opposite of Okay focuses on strong young women who have to be ashamed and justify for their way of living especially when it comes to their love interests. Where do we draw the line before we overstep it and find ourselves facing an onslaught of derogatory names?
Izzy never had it easy. Losing her parents in a car accident when she was little, her grandma raised her. Her two best friends, Ajita and Danny, are always there for her no matter how much she screws up. But when is it enough Motivated by her drama teacher, Izzy sends in her screenplay in hopes to get a scholarship for college.
While she waits for an answer, she attends a party where she hooks up with two boys in one night. Everything is fine for Izzy and life can go on. However, if only the second guy would not have been a senator’s son and his phone would have not been hacked.
With the information from his phone as well as some things that only Izzy’s friends know about her, a website pops up revealing every tiny bit of her most intimate things. The cherry on top is that her screenplay was rejected in the light of this events which have travelled through the news national wide. Izzy is questioning her behaviour as well as why people are so interested in something a teenage girl did.
I had a hard time reading this book because I liked it, but yet, did not understand it at the same time. Admittedly, Izzy’s behaviour was frustrating and she did not understand why everyone around her couldn’t understand her lifestyle choices. Although, when I started to look at it from another perspective, it started to make more sense to me.
We live in a world where a person from the other side of the globe can follow every single step of another person, regardless if they know each other or not. If you post every day with a smile on your face and the sun and wind in your hair, it could seem like you enjoy life to the fullest and have nothing to worry in your life. So the question I was asking myself at the end of the book was: Who has the right to the judge my life?
Reputation is important. How you are seen is who you are for society and that is something which will never change for humankind. In a way, it is okay that way. The best way to deal with it is to ignore what others are saying. But is Izzy happy? Well, it does not seem like it. She does what she does, but she doesn’t know why. To feel loved and forget her troubles? But would it be not better to be loved by a person who is interested in being with her for more than a couple of minutes? I do not think that there is a right answer. Every reader will have an answer that will feel right to them.
In the end, Izzy finds out who is hiding behind the website and it has to do with revenge. Without spoiling anything, being rejected can break a heart, but how it is portrayed in the book is no way to deal with it. While the world knows about her and her actions, the media blames her for having a two night stand and the dirty feeling Izzy has does not wash away easily. How does it come that only Izzy has to take responsibility? There are two more involved in it!
So the question is, why can guys do as they please but when a women does the same she is called out for it? Newsflash: Such bad words can be used on everyone! It may seem to be a man slashing book, but it is not. The female gender is put in the middle to reflect on some prejudices.
If you want to learn more about the author you can go to her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
The Exact Opposite of Okay is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Izzy O’Neill is an aspiring comic, an impoverished orphan, and a Slut Extraordinaire. Or at least, that’s what the malicious website flying round the school says. Izzy can try all she wants to laugh it off – after all, her sex life, her terms – but when pictures emerge of her doing the dirty with a politician’s son, her life suddenly becomes the centre of a national scandal. Izzy’s never been ashamed of herself before, and she’s not going to start now. But keeping her head up will take everything she has…
