“Odd one out”, a book that includes biphobia?

After reading and loving “Dear Martin”, I was curious towards Stone’s other books, especially “Odd one out” (Dutch title being “zij en ik”). I heard that “Odd one out” had a bisexual character in it, and Nic Stone being a bisexual herself, I was very interested in the book. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be nothing for me, and I even found it offensive at times.

“Odd one out” is about three teenagers; Courtney Cooper, Rae Evelyn Chin and Jupiter Charity-Sanchez. They all are dealing with their own problems and trying to figure their sexuality and their complicated relationships out. Courtney is incredibly in love with his lesbian best friend Jupiter, when she meets Rae. Rae takes her place in their friendship group and their hearts.

Although I loved the idea of the book, I found the story badly written out. There were pieces that could have been so much deeper and so much better explained, if Stone had taken her time for that. The story feels sometimes rushed, and as if pieces are missing.

The story is divided into three parts, with every part being told from a different character. And all the parts had triggering things in them. The first part was by Cooper, who as I already said, is in love with his lesbian best friend, Jupiter. He constantly tries to convince her to be with him, even though he knows about her sexuality. The second parts is about Rae, and Nic Stone doesn’t describe her sexuality correctly, which is why there are two options, and one of them means that she would just be a heterosexual b*tch. The last part is about Jupiter, who does incredible stupid and selfish things because of her emotions.

Next to that, all the characters, even the characters with a minor role, made me yell and scream at them. They all have done pretty disturbing and selfish things that I hated. They play with each other’s feelings, they have strong hateful opinions and they don’t care enough about each other.

I will explain those hateful opinions a bit better. In the beginning of the book we meet two of Coopers’ friends. We meet them as they are talking about girls, and the way they talked about them doesn’t sit right with me at all. They talked about girls as if they were objects, and when Cooper says a “feministic” thing, they laugh at him.

On the other side there is also transphobia and biphobia in the book. One of Jupiter’s friends, Breanna (who is also a lesbian) says somewhere: “I don’t fuck with bisexual girls. It is not personal, but if they leave you enough for a boy, you learn to keep your distance.”

And although there were also positive things about the book, for example the way Nic Stone used songs of Queen, they couldn’t undo all the negative points. Which is why I am not recommending anybody to read this book, that so enraged me at times. Biphobia and transphobia is still very real, and Nic Stone didn’t handle this topic the right way.