Not Otherwise Specified

Not Otherwise Specified was my third Hannah Moskowitz novel, so I thought I knew what to expect. I liked the other two. Not Otherwise Specified, though, has this totally unfortunate cover compared to the others, and I don’t know. Basically, my body was not ready for the emotional impact this book had on me. Moskowitz blew my mind with this one, making me laugh and even cry, not something I do often during books.The thing about this book is that I’m sort of surprised I loved it so much. I mean, it’s written in this stream of consciousness style, which, let me just tell you, is very much not my thing. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with it, because it generally feels very artificial or like the author was on a lot of drugs. That’s not the case with Not Otherwise Specified. Pretty much immediately, I was caught up in that VOICE. Etta’s voice is vibrant and real and she felt one hundred percent real to me.My heart ached for Etta throughout this book. She’s a black, bisexual former ballerina struggling with an eating disorder in Nebraska. She’s the very definition of not fitting in, but also fitting in too much. What Etta hates more than anything is that she’s not otherwise specified. She can identify herself as having an eating disorder and as being bisexual, but everyone still puts her in these boxes. She hates that she doesn’t qualify by the technical definitions as anorexic, which just makes her feel like more of a failure, even more out of control, the same reason she gave up ballet which she loves so much."You’re not supposed to look at a girl’s body when she dances, not in that way. She’s supposed to be unobtrusive. She’s supposed to just be part of the music, and here I come in all attention-grabbing and ETTAETTAETTA and you can make that sound as awesome and special0snowflakey as you want but at the end of the day that’s not what people want ballerinas to be."Etta sums herself up so well with this quote. She’s vibrant, full of life, and charismatic as hell. However, she tries so hard to fit in, like she did with the Dykes, her group of lesbian friends, who ejected her when she dated a guy, despite the fact she always said she was bi. She tried to be the ballerina that everyone wanted, but became so obsessed with control and how her body was wrong that she developed an eating disorder. Not Otherwise Specified is partially the story of Etta coming to terms with her Ettaness.A big part of Not Otherwise Specified is about friendship. Friends, even when they love you, can be bad for you. Etta loved the Dykes, but they’ve turned on her and are bullying her. Even so, she kind of wants them back. It’s hard for her to let go, especially of Rachel. She makes a new group of friends through an audition for Brentwood Academy, a school for theater. They still all make mistakes with one another, but the difference between the friendship dynamics is stark.Not Otherwise Specified gets dark. I mean, the issues are really heavy, but that’s counteracted by Etta’s voice, which is so full of life and humor. Etta doesn’t let things get her down for long; she’s really sweet and optimistic. She sticks up for people and cares so hard. Yes, it hurts, and I marked a lot of quotes for how much they saddened me but also struck this really honest chord. The ending, though, made me happy cry for the progress that’s being made.I loved this book. I think it’s beautiful and important. READ IT READ IT READ IT.

It took me a while to get into Etta's voice, but then I ended up really enjoying this.This is so much about relationships (with her sister Kristina, with her mom, with her friend Rachel, with her ex Danielle, with her former friends at school, with James and Bianca and Mason) and how to properly see those relationships without using them, how to be and not be defined by them. Etta is so much herself, but she's also a lot of things because the people she's around are those things, and she's trying to navigate that.I really appreciated the conclusions she came to about ballet, dance, and school.CW: eating disorder, bullying, some reclaimed misogynist or anti-queer slurs, discussion of sex.

Hannah Moskowitz writes some of the best dialogue that I've read in contemporary novels. Her characters are smart and engaging and funny and real. I've fallen in love with every book of hers that I've read. This book is no exception. It deals with a group of self-described misfits trying to break out of their life in Nebraska by entering an open audition for a performing arts high school in New York. None of them feel like they fit in with any group. Etta doesn't have a "proper" body type for ballet and she developed an eating disorder trying to get it. She's also bisexual and is being bullied by a group of lesbian girls that she was friends with for dating a boy. You'll love Etta.

Etta is larger than life and you need to listen to her story.This book is a love letter for girls everywhere who never feel like enough. For the girls who have fought in favor and against of achieving "perfection".Etta's story is for the ones that do not fit into boxes, and that refuse to be defined by others perception of them.With an incredible leap-out-of the page voice , NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED delves into the world of musical theatre, teenagers trying to figure their path, mental illness, being queer...and crushes stereotypes of each.This book is emotional, realistic and soso good. You won't regret reading it.(Trigger warning for eating disorders.)

I love the fact the main character is black and bisexual. But that's about all I liked about this book. The story was boring, the protagonist flat and uninteresting, and the resolution completely unearned. I could probably go in for hours about why this book didn't work but I'll just leave it at that. Seriously, if you are familiar with decent story craft, don't bother. You're wasting your time.

This book is everything. Great voice, great bisexual representation, gorgeous writing. Etta is such a wonderful main character, with humor and heart and confidence and an absolute refusal to be put in a box by anyone, ever. I love her and I love this book.

I've loved all Hannah's books, but this one just blew me away. That voice! I dare anyone not to love Etta after a single page...But it's not just voice. Etta has things to say. About friendship and being labeled and figuring out how to be herself when everyone around her wants her to be anything but.I recommend this as highly as anything I've read in forever.

This book shows respect for people who I’ve never seen respected in fiction before. The main character is a black bisexual ballerina with an eating disorder. She’s treated as not-fully-human by a lot of important people in her life, but the book knows that she’s a person and as the story unfolds she figures that out too.

This is a YA contemporary novel. Etta doesn’t seem to fit anywhere—her bisexuality gets her into trouble with the “Disco Dykes” group at school, she’s not skinny or white enough for the ballet she loves, she’s not ill enough for people to take her eating disorder seriously, she’s not a good enough singer to go to theatre school. Etta’s struggling with social isolation, and being the only person who is providing the support she needs. Then she finds unexpected friends at her group counselling, in a younger white anorexic girl and her gay brother. Bianca and James are from a very religious family, and are having problems all of their own.When I first picked up this book, I was a bit stunned (in the sense of being hit round the head). The style is pretty intense—Moskowitz gets right in Etta’s head, and she has a pretty full on pile of anxieties which she cycles through constantly. The style is both a positive and a negative—on the one hand, it feels realistic, and I could really feel Etta’s struggle to cope with all the problems around her, and try to stay positive and on top of them. She keeps telling herself she’s really up-beat and happy, even when she’s falling apart, and eventually it comes true. On the other hand, the style makes for a somewhat unhinging read at times, especially if you’ve had mental health problems yourself.Moskowitz does a really good job of showing some of the difficulties faced by bisexuals in finding acceptance, and in facing bi-phobia and bi-erasure. I’ve not read a lot of books with bisexual characters, and so that made a nice change. The bullying Etta faces at the hands of the girls at school actually gets pretty nasty at times, and that’s never completely resolved, which was a bit unsatisfying. Etta does stop looking for their acceptance, at least.This is a bit of a novel of extremes. The characterisation is excellent, but that makes it a tricky read at times, and not all of the emotional loose ends feel completely tied up.

This book. THIS BOOK.I fell hard for the character of Etta Sinclair - for all her flaws, her shortcomings, and her amazing, amazing qualities.I fell for the style of writing - long, long sentences with too many commas but somehow it just works. It seem like it fit so much the character of Etta - loud, brassy, flawed, but so, so right.It's also amazing that a book with a blurb starting with "Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels" uses the word bisexual unapologetically and often. Bisexual is so often erased, hinted at with "they don't like labels" - that we have a character that struggles with labels but embraces and names her bisexuality is incredibly awesome.I wanna cry with how much I loved this book. I would take a whole series of them just to spend more time with Etta. I am currently crying as I write this because that's how much this book connected with me. I kinda want to start at the beginning and reread it immediately.

I adored this. The characters felt so real and the writing style really fit the narrator and to be honest, I really want to hug all of the important characters and tell them it's going to be okay.