Golden Boy

“All I ever wanted was to be perfect. That sounds like a pretty big ask, but ???perfect??? means bland, inoffensive, likeable. I wanted other things too. I did want to stand out, be smart, be nice, but I tried so hard for those things that it wasn???t really like I was asking anyone for them. Really what I wanted was to be something more than the sum of my male and female parts.”

I appreciated this was a new story for me – a story featuring an intersex character. However, my frustrations significantly marred the experience.

Before I get to my gripes: As is almost always the case, I'm glad I read this book. It furthered my understanding of being intersex and expanded upon knowledge I'd gained reading about trans issues. A lot of kids are born outside of the perceived norm, with ambiguous or otherwise “unusual” genitalia, and yet most people are so ignorant of this. If we all knew more, it might change the conversation when we talk about what makes someone male or female. God or nature doesn't always fashion a baby to be one or the other, body development and brain development are separate, and so how can a bar stool philosopher opine that the matter is clear cut?

Anyhow...

Max is intersex. He is both male and female. I use the male pronouns because he and everyone else does. He is sexually assaulted early on, with the rapist using his female anatomy. The book is about the emotional and physical repercussions of this, as well as what it does to Max's perception of himself and his family.

The book employs multiple POVs, most felt unneeded. Also, since I felt such antipathy for Max's mother, even with her mental processes, I'd say her POV was unwanted, and really lowered my enjoyment. I believe the author, admirably, wanted Karen – the mother – to be sympathetic, but I just could not arrive at a place where she didn't make me grit my teeth.

One of the POVs is the doctor Max meets when he goes to get help after the assault. Being England, Max's clinic trip had a lot less red tape than had the book been set in America. All the medical aspects throughout the book followed suit. The problem with the doctor is she seemed to exist to explain the intersex aspect and to brush right up against betraying confidentiality when the failings, sometimes passivity, of the characters left the story at a crossroads. The doctor never felt natural.

Another POV was a potential love interest. No real complaints there, except the general sense that most of the voices were similar.

Yet another POV was Max's younger brother, Daniel. This kid was something else, mostly in a good way. While he would be trying to live with, he was also bright and funny in a book that needed a little humor now and again.

???Poltergeists are real,??? he mumbles from behind my hand. ???No they???re not.??? I frown at him. ???And neither???s Santa.??? ???Ouch,??? he says, and half-laughs, even though this is totally inappropriate because it???s disrespectful to the memory of Santa, who was real when we believed in him.

Ultimately, I spent the whole novel frustrated because the parents could see their kid was in distress and did nothing concrete to alleviate it. Their POVs were filled with thoughts of love, about how you'd do anything for your kid, but no one worked to build rapport, create a situation conducive to Max laying down some of his burden. When Max does make the first tentative steps to reach out, the mother instantly burns any bridge to communication, making wildly ignorant assumptions, and further traumatizing a child in pain. Any question she asks is then in the context of shame, judgement, and antagonism.

Max is established early on as a sweet and accommodating kid. Eventually, some of this is attributed to seeing from an early age the consequences of stressing out his mother. Which means he is prone to masking his pain, keeping secret his plight. And so with neither parent seeking to do more than handle the practical stuff, leaving the emotional and psychological dimension largely unquestioned, I pretty much just wanted to scream. Again, the doctor had to just about betray confidentiality to get Karen to give a second thought to her assumptions. And Karen is allegedly a successful attorney.

So, this is how I ended up at 3 stars and wanting to yell at some fictional characters.

wow. no words can describe how this book makes you feel and how deeply it makes you think about things you may have never considered. this is such an important piece of work and one of my new favorite books of all time.

This book very nearly broke me. Very early on in the novel (so early that I don't consider the rest of this sentence to be a spoiler, especially considering that the whole novel is about the consequences), 15 year old Max is raped by a close childhood friend, someone he has grown up with and should have been able to trust. This sexual assault scene is immensely graphic and upsetting to read. The violation of trust, the fact that the childhood friend simply walks into Max's bedroom late at night and acts on an impulse, is sickening. And because of this scene, I'd question whether this YA novel should really be read by younger teens... I definitely don't think I'd have been able to handle reading this scene when I was the age of the protagonist. Either way, whatever age you are, I think it might be a good idea to go into this at least a little prepared for what is to come.

So, onto the consequences. Max, despite always identifying as male, was born as intersex, and surviving this horrendous attack leads him to properly question his identity and place in the world for the first time. I really applaud Tarttelin for dealing with some pretty brutal issues both for Max and his family. There are questions over how much responsibility we have when making big decisions that affect our children's future. How much should the choice be left to them when they are too young to make decisions themselves? Max's parents clearly tried their best when he was a newborn, but is it possible they should have been more decisive, taken on more of the responsibility, and would that have eased any of Max's suffering in his teenage years? I really liked how this issue of family responsibility was dealt with, as well as, of course, the larger issue of gender expectations. I found myself so utterly overwhelmed with anxiety for Max at times, so hoping he would have an happy ending. This book certainly has a powerful, emotional punch.

Having said that, the book wasn't perfect. There were few, niggling technical issues. I thought an editor could have given a slightly closer look to a few parts. The phrasing could be awkward and stilted, and, a common issue with using multiple first-person perspectives, some of the voices weren't quite unique enough to be distinguishable. I also thought Daniel's (Max's 10 year old brother) chapters were....odd. Meaning you can tell it is child's voice as written by an adult. That didn't work that well for me personally. However, putting aside these issues, the story itself and its emotional impact means I have to highly recommend this to readers. Be prepared for tears!