The Exact Opposite of Okay By Laura Steven Spoiler-Free Review

Hey everyone!!

I’ve got a review for ‘The Exact Opposite of Okay‘ and let me tell you now it is an extraordinary book that I loved and I can’t recommend it enough. (Please read this book!!)

The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven

Published: March 8th 2018 by Electric Monkey

Genre: YA Contemporary, feminist, first in the series

Trigger Warnings:

sexism, slut-shaming, male gaze, sexual objectification, small bit of homophobia (not in a good light)

Synopsis: “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…”

MY REVIEW

YES. YES. YES. I ADORED THIS BOOK!!

The Exact Opposite of Okay is a story where we follow Izzy O’Neill who is an 18-year old student living her life just fine but then it all changes when a site brings up photos of her having sex with a Senator’s son and talks about all her sexual behaviour which obviously changes her life in more ways than one.

The book talks about being a woman in a modern day society very specifically to Izzy O’Neill’s experience but it reflects so much about our society and just so many of the things that Izzy goes through is so real and Steven was able to capture so much. It talked about so many things. I was getting angry, I was getting disgusted and I was getting empowered. 

This is a modern day feminist book that so many should read– to chant along with Izzy and to learn something.

This book is told in first person narrative and it is told as if Izzy is writing about her life on her private blog so you can a very first-hand view into her story and you get a more informal tone as this is how 18 year old would write about her life. But she is a comedian and likes to make a joke about everything giving this book a really engaging, easy to read, light-hearted tone but it still able to hit the hard points so well and with a lot of emotion.

A big theme of this book is the sexist society that we live and we specifically look at the way slut-shaming occurs. As the photos and stories of Izzy’s sex life are released it is then followed by the response of many different people– students, teachers etc. and as it involves a politician son the stories gathers more and more chatter which unfortunately is mostly negative throwing out the word ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ as much as possible.

This is an awful and horrible experience but what I felt like Steven was able to do was build a full picture of the after, not just the relentless name calling and ‘slut-shaming’. It shakes up everything in her life. From how teachers view her, to people who she consider friendly with her (if not all the way to friends), her friend’s parents, judges in a competition and a boy who had a ‘crush’ on her. It talks about how one incident effects everything and isn’t just the worse people who can hurt you. It when people are nice and think you owe them something because of it which is a very real thing but not always talked about so I was glad to see it was. It is the small things as well as the outright bullying that exists.

It was a hard time and it did highlight a lot of bad behaviour (that people just don’t call out) but it also made all the best people shine brighter. It was full of characters that you can easily love. They are wonderful characters and just make my heart warm SO much. This is also a funny book, the topic isn’t but the book itself is because of the narration and the characters. It still handles the hard topics with the right amount of care though. The friendship with Ajita is amazing. Ajita is amazing. She was a loyal friend and I loved seeing how much Izzy valued that. It included some good friend appreciation in this and talked about how to be a better friend which I liked.

A big part of this book is talking about sexism but it talks about many different things as well, it doesn’t just stick to one inequality. Now Izzy is a white straight girl and that is definitely the experience we are facing in this book as it would be different for different people. But she also had money problems and I think it talked about those really realistically. Also with Ajita, her best friend, we begin to touch on her character and what she has to face with. She made this really good point about privilege which I liked.

I like that this book talked about many different topics from sexism, racism, money problems and how it affects your dreams, body image, sex talk, revenge porn. I think the book treated each point with care and got the right message across. It was well put together as much as it was frustrating to see the injustice the characters showed how it was wrong and helped each other.

Izzy, Ajita, Meg, Carson, Betty and Dumbledore (the dog) are ALL amazing characters and I can’t wait to see more from them!!

This book handled the situation with so much care and pure brilliance that it made a very real story to read, it had a funny and lovable protagonist that made the book so engaging (she did have quite a British voice considering it was set in America as revenge porn laws are different there but I liked it as I’m British), a great friendship and a sweet romance. It had everything I wanted and more so I can’t recommend this enough. IT. WAS. AMAZING. It is definitely 5 stars if you haven’t guessed that already.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Have you read The Exact Opposite of Okay? What did you think of it? Do you want to read it? (please tell me if you do read it)

What are you favourite feminist stories/characters? If you’ve got any recommendations similar to this please let me know.