Ready, Okay!

"The day I turned sixteen I had no idea that in four months nearly everyone I cared about would be dead. Unburdened with this foreknowledge, it was with a free and unclouded spirit that I went down to the DMV and failed my driving test."

—Allen Mockery, Ready, Okay!

Ready, Okay! is a dark comedy novel written by Adam Cadre, that follows four months of peer counselor Allen Mockery's life after his sixteenth birthday, and his interactions with all the people of his life at his school.

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Tropes used in Ready, Okay! include:

• A Date with Rosie Palms - Evidently, this happens quite a bit in the Mockery household.
• Adults Are Useless - Yes. Yes they are. Especially Bobbo.
• Big Breasts, Big Deal - Peggy is the Type 2 version of this. She has a very large bust size, and she hates it.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing - Siren. Not that anyone is actually fooled.
• Break the Cutie - Peggy. Oh, Peggy.
  • Echo was broken to begin with, and Allen ends up pretty broken as well.
• Butt Monkey - Allen, occasionally.
• The Casanova - Carver Fringie. Not that it stops him from stooping as low as rape.
• Children Are Innocent - Subverted. In horrible, horrible ways.
• Cloudcuckoolander - Deconstructed in the form of Kelly Kaylin given the reason why.
• Deconstructor Fleet - The book seems to go out of its way to deconstruct several tropes, by showing exactly how an innocent high schooler would be treated by her classmates, exactly how screwed up a girl who plays the role of Ms. Fanservice would actually have to be, and that sometimes being a loner is psychologically damaging.
• Defrosting Ice Queen - Echo. It does not end well.
  • Averted with Siren Delaney.
• Devil in Plain Sight - Everybody knows that Kreig is a total jerk. They just didn't know he was a Complete Monster too.
• Disproportionate Retribution - Carver Fringie most certainly deserved what he got, but not for the reason he got it for.
• Downer Ending - Allen and Echo are alive, but everyone else Allen was ever close to is either dead or not in their lives anymore. And Echo is in a mental facility at the end of the story.
• Driven to Suicide - Peggy Kaylin.
  • Echo too, but that ends up being averted.
• Drugs Are Bad - Kelly Kaylin, who has been on a form of methamphetamine for years.
• Dysfunction Junction
• Epic Kiss - Echo, with Hayley. It does not end well.
• Feel No Pain - Deconstructed, again, in the form of Kelly Kaylin.
• Foregone Conclusion - The first sentence of the book outright states that pretty much everyone the main character knows ends up dead by the end of the story. The drama is finding out how.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness - Peggy Kaylin used to be this, until...
• Incest Is Relative - There is no actual sex between Echo and Allen, but Molly sure wishes there was.
• It Got Worse - in freaking spades.
• Jerkass - Quite a few people. Justified, as it occurs in a high school.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk - Siren Delaney, in spades.
• Karmic Death - Carver Fringie.
• Kill'Em All - The first sentence of the book was not a lie.
• Kill the Cutie - Pretty much everyone.
• Lack of Empathy - Kelly Kaylin.
• Loveable Sex Maniac - Holdn Holdnowski.
• Only Sane Man - Allen. Everyone else around him is strange in their own little way. And nobody really listens to him.
• Ms. Fanservice - Deconstructed.
• Laser-Guided Karma - Carver Fringie really shouldn't have messed with Echo.
• Les Yay - Echo kisses Hayley. Passionately.
• Rape as Drama - Peggy Kaylin and Echo Mockery.
• Suicide by Cop - Attempted by Echo, but narrowly averted by split-second timing.
• There Are No Therapists - September and Allen are both peer counselors at their school, so technically there are. It's just that nobody ever listens to them.
• Tsundere - Echo to Allen.