No Way! Okay, Fine.

Brodie Lancaster’s first book is a memoir that fuses Lancaster’s love of pop culture and feminism to explore her quest for authentic identity and self-acceptance – even if the taboo of being an ‘adult One Direction-fan’ hasn’t exactly been broken. Yet.

Lancaster uses film and TV, music and the internet to examine her own life: every essay is chock-full of cultural references that illustrate the degree to which we interpret our lives through stories we see on-screen. Discussing body image and self-esteem, Lancaster draws on comedian Aidy Bryant’s work on Saturday Night Live; in an essay about growing up in a small town, moving away and returning home, she compares herself to Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. These references range from obvious to obscure, and serve to underline Lancaster’s realisation that she has spent her life trying on and discarding the identities – church-going teen, pop-punk scene kid, New York City career woman – that she grew up watching in movies and on TV.

The strongest essays cut to the heart of her own personal history. While the arguments in more critical pieces – like ‘The Codes to Self-Esteem’, which analyses the cult of Kanye West, or ‘Real Quality’, about what constitutes good taste in music – didn’t always convince me, Lancaster’s reflective essays flow easily and more self-assuredly. The chapters that examine body image and dating, feeling lonely and trapped living in New York, and falling in love on the internet are compelling and speak honestly to the experience of being a young, millennial woman.

No Way! Okay, Fine. adds to the growing canon of memoirs by young Australian writers, and will appeal to fans of Lena Dunham, Lindy West and Melissa Broder.

Kelsey Oldham