Title: Okay for Now
Author: Gary Schmidt
Release Date: April 2011
Published By: Houghton
Pages: 368
Goodreads Rating: 4.60 stars
Review: Doug Swieteck has more problems than just being the new kid in town. He has to struggle in his relationships with his abusive father, his war victim brother fresh from Vietnam, and of course, Lil Spicer, the spitfire daughter of his boss. He undergoes more than one transformation as he discovers new sides of himself, and a strength he never knew he had.
I didn't expect too much from OKAY FOR NOW, and only read it because I'd heard Gary Schmidt was a good writer. I'm not sure what exactly I had in mind when I picked up my Kindle and selected it, but it certainly wasn't the emotional rollercoaster this book took me on. Doug is a painfully honest young boy growing up in the late 60s who deals with a host of problems, and his authentic voice shines straight through the pages or, er, Kindle screen.
I laughed. There were funny moments and lines and scenes that had me smiling and laughing. I cried. There were wrenching parts that made my heart ache and left me tearing up in public places, each emotional moment hitting me like a punch to the gut. This is how you know when a book is powerful - when it affects you to such a point that you feel it physically.
OKAY FOR NOW may be a middle grade novel, but it brims with a maturity and agelessness that makes it appeal to any audience at all. Doug's raw voice and beauitful, honest story takes the reader on a ride that results in both laughter and tears. It takes a bit, but once you really get into this, you won't be able to put it down until the very end, and even then you'll want to continue it.
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I received a free copy of this book for review. This in no way affected my review.
1 comments:
Oh my gosh, wasn't this book fantastic?!? I'm not a fan of middle grade, but I think this is one of those books that people older than the intended audience will appreciate more than actual middle grade readers would. But, yeah, I loved this book so much that I actually ended up not writing a review of it, because I couldn't organize my thoughts beyond "That was freaking amazing!"
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