Seventh-grade Doug moves with his family to the small town of Marysville after his father loses his job. Before last week, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to like the second book more than the first but here I am, telling you that I liked it just as much, if not more.

I know he can do it, considering both The Wednesday Wars and Okay For Now are pretty darn close to achieving that feat. After reading both of these books, Gary Schmidt has shot himself in the foot going forward From here on out, I’ll be expecting perfection. While they are both quirky, Okay For Now is riddled with darkness that its predecessor didn’t have, and that kind of heaviness usually appeals to me, at least when it is well done. Gary Schmidt’s earlier work, The Wednesday Wars, introduced readers to Doug Swieteck as a secondary character, but Doug takes front stage in Okay For Now, its 2011 companion novel. Along the way, he also readjusts his relationship with his abusive father, his school peers, and his older brother, a newly returned war victim of Vietnam. With her challenging assistance, Doug discovers new sides of himself.

Okay For Now, his latest novel, explores another seemingly improbable alliance, this one between new outsider in town Doug Swieteck and Lil Spicer, the savvy spitfire daughter of his deli owner boss. Schmidt won Newbery Honor awards for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boys and The Wednesday Wars, two coming-of-age novels about unlikely friends finding a bond.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt