Peter, the articulate, troubled narrator of Brett Axel’s novel Not Okay, reconsiders and rejects popular 1970s self-help advice while figuring out his own way to recover from child sexual abuse. The only reason I think the frozen lemonade girl is OK is because I don’t know her. Prepare to cry a little, gasp a little, and laugh a lot. Reluctantly, he relents and becomes the more undesirable person the world expects him to be. Normal people shy away from him but he makes a few friends from the fringe of humanity and they try to help him as best they can.Īs much as he hopes he will find a socially acceptable role in the world, there just isn't one for him. He's kind of dorky, kind of clueless about what is and isn't reasonable to do or say, and shielded only by a unique and slightly twisted sense of humor. He smokes a little weed but he is hardly an addict, he pilfers supplies from this therapy group but he's no hardened criminal. Someone who was abducted and sexually abused who returns to society so altered that he doesn't even know how to find a place. It could be someone who went to school abroad and returned, it could be someone who went to prison and returned, it could be someone who went to sea and returned, but no, instead it is a story that, as far as I know, has never been told before. Peter's is a fish taken out of water and then put back into water story.

I was thankful to get a paperback advance review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

Goblinheart by Brett Axel