Okay for Now

Warning - because this is basically a book review, there will be spoilers. Just saying.

Okay for Now is a book by Gary D. Schmidt. And it's really good.  I just recently finished listening to it on audiobook form and it really impressed me.
The book covers, I think, a lot of topics. It takes place in a small town in New York, during the Vietnam War.
Okay for Now takes place after Gary Schmidt's other book The Wednesday Wars, although I do not believe it's a sequel but don't quote me.


Doug Swiateck is a boy who is trying to find out who is is and what the meaning to life is (and how to survive it).

He moves with his family to Marysville, New York and there he finds himself. He meets great people and learns a lot about others.

I like how in this story, you meet people that you initially think, "I hope they get their comeuppance" or something like that, but then you learn something about them that totally changes your perspective. You just don't have enough facts yet and you can't judge someone without all the facts.

Doug lives in a broken family, you might say, and it's hard for him to settle in (which is not unusual). He has a brother in Vietnam and a brother still at home. His dad is, as it says in the book description, lost and his mom is sad but has the most beautiful smile on earth.

Another thing I really like about Okay for Now is that Doug meets a lot of people who end up being mentors to him. In most books the main character only has one mentor, which is fine, but in this book Doug meets a couple of them.
And he learns to draw. And drawing birds becomes his niche, his passion.
And by the end of the book he comes to really like Marysville which he had, up to this pointed, very much disliked.
And though his family isn't all the way fixed yet by the end of the book, it's on its way.

Like I said I was really impressed with Okay for Now and I think it was because Doug is going through so much and I'm not. Let me explain what I mean, Doug is going through so much that it makes it seem like stuff I'm going through is small.


Some other stats on the book (even though stats don't mean anything):
- Very little language
- Twists and turns around every corner
- Lots of feeling and excitement

I think another part of why the book is so good is, Doug is a real person. I mean, it's something that you can believe and see an actual person doing. It's natural and human.

It's fun watching Doug go through his life in Marysville and learn all about his different, and hilarious, experiences but also learn a thing or two yourself.