The Controversy Begins … BRING IT ON
Dear Reader,
Early readers and reviewers have raved about Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome (to be published January 20, 2026), but a recent review from a Gen Z reviewer made it clear there’s a swath of young people out there who aren’t going to get it.
Well, I’ve got news for those younger readers: I didn’t spend a decade writing 1.25 million words and 9 books for your generation; I wrote Bodaciously for my generation—a generation whose childhood and teen experience has been scandalously underrepresented in American literature; a generation that has consistently been ignored, marginalized and passed-over; a generation that was largely under parented or outright unparented, who had to come home from school to an empty house, who didn’t have cell phones or the internet, who rode their bikes without helmets and body armor, who drank out of hoses, who passed notes in school, and who had to figure out most things themselves or through their friends.
-
-
First, the awesome stuff reviewers have said about the novel:
One reader of the Advance Reading Copy remarked that the novel “felt like stepping into a magical time machine—and I didn’t want to leave,” while another wrote, “…this is how it was in real life, the confusion, the exploration, the time we were no longer kids but not adults.” Professional reviews of Episode I have been equally laudatory. BlueInk Review (*Starred Review*) exclaims, “…it’s so well written…. As Ace himself might say, ‘Awesome, Dude.’”; Kirkus calls it, “A light-hearted, swift adventure…,”; and Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer of Midwest Book Review says, “…the 1980s comes to life in a way few other novels could achieve…” and that it “…simmers with discovery.”
For reasons I won’t get into here, I’m not allowed to quote directly from the critical review by the Gen Z reader, but I’ll tell you the gist. She gave it 2 out of 5 stars, pointing out that the sexual situations made her “uncomfortable”—even though the book description makes it very clear that there is a “sexual awakening” and intimate teen relationships in the book.
But here’s the deal: she acknowledges that 1) she could understand how the book would appeal to members of Gen X; 2) she read Bodaciously all the way to the end—something she wouldn’t have done if she absolutely hated it—and 3) she had an emotional response to the work, which is what I, as a novelist, am supposed to elicit in readers.
Guess what? NAILED IT.
-
-
I want this book to be controversial; I want readers to have love it/hate it reactions to it; I want it to prompt debate between the generations, among women, among men, among men and women. I want book clubs to read it and their members to argue about it.
The fact is, I wrote these books to be controversial, and I look at this first 2‑star review (when compared to the raves the book has received) as a harbinger of more controversy to come. (Oh, by the way: why did I feature the cover of Lolita at the top of this post? Because it was insanely controversial when it was published in 1958.)
As far as I’m concerned, bring it on. I know the books are great, so all I hear is cha-ching, cha-ching, CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-CHING.
Or, like the Kool-Aid Guy used to say, “Ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhh!”
Come January 20th, 2026, I fully expect the controversy to explode, but I’m ready for it.
Chris Orcutt
“Lord of the ’80s” and Self-Appointed Gen X Defender
—
P.S.: Thanks to Robb Sherwin for the photo of Bodaciously on his Ms. Pac-Man videogame console; thanks to my nephew, Aydin, for building me (I paid him for his labor) the LEGO Space Shuttle next to the hardcover of Bodaciously; and thanks to my wife Alexas for the photo of me next to the movie poster for Top Gun: Maverick.
Comments (0)