The plan was to review a different book but I just finished this one and it's better to do it fresh, right? Last time I reviewed I poorly rated book was for Reading Around the World Challenge and I told you I usually do not review books I rate under 3 stars unless I want to complain. This time, I really want to complain. Grab your popcorn.
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| ★★☆☆☆ |
Okay Days follows Sam and Luc as they start a relationship with a deadline during Sam's summer in London. The book wants to be a literary romance exploring mental health, reproductive rights and messy people in love. But in my opinion it fails miserably.
The author is an influencer but I really went into this book thinking it was published the traditional way (and I still hope that was the case).
"I know he wants nothing more than for us to be friends, talk in person. But it is obvious I can't give that to him. I will never not want him. This is out of my control and it is wrecking me."
No Plot, No Vibes, Only Tell, Tell, Tell
This could have been a great exploration of messy, unlikeable humans. I’m all for flawed characters making questionable decisions, especially in the name of love. But these characters... they are flat and interchangeable. It's dual POV book but each time I had to check whose POV I was in because that's how indistinguishable they are from one another. It’s all the author’s voice—there’s no distinct personality or depth to any of them. And is it just me or does the writing gets worse as the book goes on? I guess the editor had enough of this story too.
I enjoy books where nothing happens, where the focus is on the messiness of being human, where the characters just exist, walk, talk - but you know what, there is always something meaningful there. Something happens even if it semes like it's not and you are left with something after reading those books. Not the case with Okay Days. The potential was there, but the writing is so superficial and the characters so flat that there's no saving grace for this book.
"I suspected the severe boredom had unhinged my brain chemicals somehow, making me care more about things than other people would. Like waking up hungover bothered me, the self-abuse aspect of it. Some of my friends would still sleep away most of the weekend, waking up late and eating fried things, only to go out again. I have never been into fried food but even staying out late had at this point lost its appeal because sleeping in ruined the whole flow of the day, making me stress to catch up on whatever I had missed."
The "Zacusca" Part
Ironically, I might have rated this as an "okay book" with a solid 2 or even 3 stars if I had just DNFed it. But no, I had to push through and keep reading and did you know our main character is half Romanian? Well I am Romanian too... At first I found it strange and quite fun that Sam was half Romanian, but then I just had to keep reading and meet her parents and witness more of the Romanian things of this book.
I am convinced that when choosing the dishes the dad cooks the author just googled "vegan Romanian dishes" and chose whatever she thought sounded good because... well I know no Romanian family (expat or not) who cooks zacusca to eat it for dinner. With a bit of research and editing this could've been believable - like instead of cooking it the dad just opened a jar of zacusca from the pantry, like any normal Romanian family would.
"She'd learned by that point that she couldn't fix people. All she needed to know, really, in any human transaction, was whether it was right for her; whether it fit."
Let's Leave Sally Rooney Out of This
I think the publishing industry should stop comparing debut authors to Sally Rooney. It only damages the book. Rooney is a pretty divisive author so people who do not like her style will avoid the book and people who like her (like moi) will constantly compare the two books and Okay Days does not come even close to Rooney's writing style.
I am not sure this book knows what it wants to do or be. It tries to explore some deep themes like mental illness and reproductive rights, but it barely scratches the surface - it wants to be deep without doing any actual work. The author seems to think that just mentioning these issues is enough - because really this book is only tell tell tell. The characters tell you how they feel constantly and they overexplain their decisions and no, don't come to me calling this type of writing stream of consciousness or Sally Rooney-esc!
In spite of all my complaints, I did like the summeriness of it. I am sure Jenny has potential as a writer (with a lot of polish and a lot of editing) because the sense of summer is palpable through the pages. I just wish she had kept her characters distinct and developed them more fully.
"But even if we are fairly miserable now, to be honest I'd rather have two more miserable days with you than two okay days without."