A Brief Summary Of Okay For Now, By Gary D. Schmidt

In Gary D. Schmidt’s “Okay for Now,” Doug Swieteck’s abusive father moves the entire family to stupid Marysville, leaving behind any friends, any happiness, and any hope that Doug may have. You know how that feels? In the summer of 1968 Doug arrives to the dump of a house in Marysville where he family already has a begun to have a reputation that can only get him in trouble. Terrific. Doug Swieteck is a fourteen year old, who enjoys mouthing off to teachers and pretending he’s a lot of stuff he’s not, but how can you blame a kid who’s father comes home every night with the smell of alcohol on his breathe and rage in his heart? Not to mention Lucas who only stopped beating Doug up when he was drafted in the midst of the brutal Vietnam War,

Schmidt because I appreciated the message it hid deeper under the surface. I did not find the book confusing, I understand why some people may, the way that Doug might stop mid-sentence or say, “nevermind,” and hurry on before it gets to emotionally strenuous for him to bear. It wasn’t too easy either, though I could read harder books in a sense of difficulty, the difficulty of “Okay for Now” isn’t the amount of pages or coming across words you don’t know, it’s the story. The story isn’t easy to read at points. As you venture further into the novel you begin to uncover more heart wrenching details, and you begin to realize how emotionally, and physically scarred this abused fourteen year old boy truly is. The book is incredibly believable, the characters, the story, it could easily all be real. The sentiment of brokenness really washes over you when you realize that Doug’s life is so believable because it happens. Doug’s horror is a reality for many children, and that’s why this novel means so much. The ending was the most unpredictable part of the book in my opinion, but it was my favorite part of the entire book. Watching all Doug’s broken pieces fall back together was a very emotional part of the book. I think that some of “Okay for Now” relates to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Harry Potter series because all of them show a damaged young boy whose eyes are suddenly opened when someone steps in and shows them they are worth something. All three boys were mistreated, and hurt, and in the end, all three boys found someone and something they cared about. Gary D. Schmidt’s style of writing is interesting with the details factor, the way he that he expresses how Doug feels mostly through his actions. A few things about his style I found irritable, like the excessive use of the word said, but he made up for it with his wonderful descriptions. The way he wrote Doug when he felt especially lonely