Only Mostly Devastated

by Sophie Gonzales

“Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love, right? It might not be ideal, but we may as well do it with a grin.”

Although ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED was never written to be a straight retelling of Grease so much as it was an homage to Grease and other classic rom-coms, I spent a lot of time thinking about the controversial message of Grease, and came to the conclusion that I’d like to focus on knowing when to sacrifice for love, and when to enforce boundaries, as an overarching theme in ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED. When Ollie’s mom says this line to him, we can see that these are the sort of values he’s been raised with; the encouragement to self-sacrifice. Ollie tends to live his life for others—he helps out with his family, moves states without complaining, and gives up his nights to babysit his cousins. Ollie’s problem is that he has trouble figuring out where to draw the line between a reasonable sacrifice, and becoming a doormat. As the book goes on, we see him getting clearer and clearer about where that line should be drawn—even swinging too far in the opposite direction as he tests the waters, before finally coming to a happy medium where he’s able to communicate his own needs, and also offer help and understanding when appropriate.