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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
This is one of those times where I'm incredibly glad that I'm a book blogger. You see, were I not blogging, I would not have the reader friends I do, and I would miss out on books like Golden Boy. I never would have picked this up in the store, because the cover is weird and doesn't really convey the subject matter. Thankfully, a couple days after I got an email with Golden Boy as one of the audiobooks available for review, my dear friend Jenni of Alluring Reads told me that she felt certain I would love this book. Jenni was right.
This cover is a strange one, and, once I knew what the book was about, I can see what they're doing, subtly calling out the gender issues with the two bikes, one intended for males and one for females. Why moving a bar from straight to slanted suddenly makes a bike girly or changes it in any practical way, I can't say. Still, I do think it's a shame there's nothing on the cover to speak to the subject matter, because I seek out books about different sorts of sexuality/gender and would have missed this.
Golden Boy tells the story of Max, a handsome boy who seems perfect in every respect, popular, athletic and intelligent. Max has a secret, though: he's not actually a boy. Nor is he a girl. Max is intersex, the new politically correct term that replaced hermaphrodite. Because Max has both a penis and a vagina, he's avoided serious relationships, though he has developed a reputation because he makes out with a lot of different girls. His being intersex didn't really impact his life.
Until it did. At a family party, Hunter, Max's best friend growing up, rapes Max. The scene is rather graphic and intensely emotional. Max has always felt like a boy, and not really questioned that. With this incident, Max has to truly face that he's not a regular boy, and, in the fallout, so does his family. What follows is an honest, beautiful, heart-wrenching look at Max's journey to become comfortable with who he is and to decide who he wants to be as an adult.
The subject matter in Golden Boy is quite dark and unflinching at times. The discussion of the issues of being intersex is frank and honest. However, Tarttelin makes the brilliant storytelling move of including more than just Max's perspective, which cuts on the melodrama. She does six separate perspectives: Max, his family (mother, father, little brother), his girlfriend Sylvie, and his doctor Archie (a woman). Since I listened to the audiobook, I can't say how individual they felt in print, but in the audiobook they were all brilliantly performed, with a narrator for each perspective.
In some books with multiple perspectives, characters are added for no discernible reason at all, not adding anything to the narrative, or particular perspectives are incredibly boring, to be suffered through while the reader waits impatiently for the main character to return. Not so with Golden Boy. Each perspective brought something to the table, even Max's father's, which only appears twice. Max is so confused and lost and depressed that it's wonderful to see him from an outside perspective. Daniel, for instance, hero-worships his brother. Sylvie thinks he's hot. Neither of them know, of course, but we get a true look at the golden boy. Then there's his parents, who love him and do the best they can, but, through their perspectives, the reader really gets a sense of how uncomfortable they are with his intersexuality now that it's known he's actually of age for sex.
Archie's point of view adds a whole other dimension. As a doctor, when Max comes in, he really lights a fire in her when she realizes how little she knows about being intersex. Her medical schooling included almost nothing on the subject. She begins to really research, because she very much wants to help Max, who comes to her office the day after his rape for a morning after pill. Archie's perspective really drives home how little attention the medical community is paying to such gender issues and how much they push to "normalize" with surgery.
Since there's a lot I would spoil if I went any more into the plot, I'm going to speak in general terms. The way Tarttelin wrapped everything up is incredibly touching and what convinced me this book deserved the full five stars. Some of the choices Tarttelin made surprised me, but they were just right. I'll leave it at that.
If you're going to read this book, which I really think you should, the audiobook is an excellent choice. With six talented narrators giving voice to the six perspectives, there's a strong sense of voice. The narrators for Max and Sylvie are particularly compelling. I've listened to quite a few full cast narrations, but this one is I think the best I've read so far.
LGBT (I know this doesn't cover everything, but the term QUILTBAG looks a bit silly - I intend this as all-encompassing) issues have not been covered nearly enough in fiction and I love Golden Boy merely for existing. However, Golden Boy is not just wonderful for covering a tricky, sensitive topic, but for doing so with heart, honesty and compassion. Abigail Tarttelin, welcome to my auto-read list.
This cover is a strange one, and, once I knew what the book was about, I can see what they're doing, subtly calling out the gender issues with the two bikes, one intended for males and one for females. Why moving a bar from straight to slanted suddenly makes a bike girly or changes it in any practical way, I can't say. Still, I do think it's a shame there's nothing on the cover to speak to the subject matter, because I seek out books about different sorts of sexuality/gender and would have missed this.
Golden Boy tells the story of Max, a handsome boy who seems perfect in every respect, popular, athletic and intelligent. Max has a secret, though: he's not actually a boy. Nor is he a girl. Max is intersex, the new politically correct term that replaced hermaphrodite. Because Max has both a penis and a vagina, he's avoided serious relationships, though he has developed a reputation because he makes out with a lot of different girls. His being intersex didn't really impact his life.
Until it did. At a family party, Hunter, Max's best friend growing up, rapes Max. The scene is rather graphic and intensely emotional. Max has always felt like a boy, and not really questioned that. With this incident, Max has to truly face that he's not a regular boy, and, in the fallout, so does his family. What follows is an honest, beautiful, heart-wrenching look at Max's journey to become comfortable with who he is and to decide who he wants to be as an adult.
The subject matter in Golden Boy is quite dark and unflinching at times. The discussion of the issues of being intersex is frank and honest. However, Tarttelin makes the brilliant storytelling move of including more than just Max's perspective, which cuts on the melodrama. She does six separate perspectives: Max, his family (mother, father, little brother), his girlfriend Sylvie, and his doctor Archie (a woman). Since I listened to the audiobook, I can't say how individual they felt in print, but in the audiobook they were all brilliantly performed, with a narrator for each perspective.
In some books with multiple perspectives, characters are added for no discernible reason at all, not adding anything to the narrative, or particular perspectives are incredibly boring, to be suffered through while the reader waits impatiently for the main character to return. Not so with Golden Boy. Each perspective brought something to the table, even Max's father's, which only appears twice. Max is so confused and lost and depressed that it's wonderful to see him from an outside perspective. Daniel, for instance, hero-worships his brother. Sylvie thinks he's hot. Neither of them know, of course, but we get a true look at the golden boy. Then there's his parents, who love him and do the best they can, but, through their perspectives, the reader really gets a sense of how uncomfortable they are with his intersexuality now that it's known he's actually of age for sex.
Archie's point of view adds a whole other dimension. As a doctor, when Max comes in, he really lights a fire in her when she realizes how little she knows about being intersex. Her medical schooling included almost nothing on the subject. She begins to really research, because she very much wants to help Max, who comes to her office the day after his rape for a morning after pill. Archie's perspective really drives home how little attention the medical community is paying to such gender issues and how much they push to "normalize" with surgery.
Since there's a lot I would spoil if I went any more into the plot, I'm going to speak in general terms. The way Tarttelin wrapped everything up is incredibly touching and what convinced me this book deserved the full five stars. Some of the choices Tarttelin made surprised me, but they were just right. I'll leave it at that.
If you're going to read this book, which I really think you should, the audiobook is an excellent choice. With six talented narrators giving voice to the six perspectives, there's a strong sense of voice. The narrators for Max and Sylvie are particularly compelling. I've listened to quite a few full cast narrations, but this one is I think the best I've read so far.
LGBT (I know this doesn't cover everything, but the term QUILTBAG looks a bit silly - I intend this as all-encompassing) issues have not been covered nearly enough in fiction and I love Golden Boy merely for existing. However, Golden Boy is not just wonderful for covering a tricky, sensitive topic, but for doing so with heart, honesty and compassion. Abigail Tarttelin, welcome to my auto-read list.
I wasn't sure if I would like the multiple POVs in this book, but I enjoyed them more than I thought I would.
This book really delivers a punch. It is not a subject I have read about much and I loved all the details, even if they were a bit much and a bit heavy handed.
I loved the first half of the book. But then...
Everything just started breaking apart. The characters stopped talking to each other and, when they did, no one listened. Especially Max and his mother. Both started taking on a Woe-is-me attitude that just got tiring. And repetitive. The same things were said/thought by the characters over and over again, in slightly different ways. It took me three days to read the last 30 pages because I didn't want to pick up the book again. Even Daniel, the little brother, had lost his charm.
There are some nice twists that I totally didn't see coming, and the ending did pick my interest back up, though it really felt much too late and should have happened sooner if the characters would have just *talked* to each other.
The first half of the book was a solid 4 stars. The last half was mostly 2 stars until the very end.
This book really delivers a punch. It is not a subject I have read about much and I loved all the details, even if they were a bit much and a bit heavy handed.
I loved the first half of the book. But then...
Everything just started breaking apart. The characters stopped talking to each other and, when they did, no one listened. Especially Max and his mother. Both started taking on a Woe-is-me attitude that just got tiring. And repetitive. The same things were said/thought by the characters over and over again, in slightly different ways. It took me three days to read the last 30 pages because I didn't want to pick up the book again. Even Daniel, the little brother, had lost his charm.
There are some nice twists that I totally didn't see coming, and the ending did pick my interest back up, though it really felt much too late and should have happened sooner if the characters would have just *talked* to each other.
The first half of the book was a solid 4 stars. The last half was mostly 2 stars until the very end.
Such a rollercoaster of emotions reading this book! I loved it, I loved the characters, the story is SO complex and complicated and I really enjoyed getting it from 5-6 different perspectives. So thought provoking and profound. Would highly recommend.
I think I'm finally willing to admit that I have no interest in finishing this book. It keeps staring at me from my Goodreads home page and I keep saying to myself I'll finish it, but why? So I can make myself feel better about actually finishing a book? I don't need to do that. There are thousands and thousands of amazing books out there that I can finish and love and not take THREE MONTHS to finish (or not finish, as I have decided to do).
This is not a bad book, but it just wasn't for me. It tells a very interesting story and I was fascinated at the beginning, but as it went on, I felt it started to drag and things just got a bit annoying, to tell the truth. I only had 20% or so left to read, so I think I made a fair dent into it, and I'm just not bothered about completing at.
This is not a bad book, but it just wasn't for me. It tells a very interesting story and I was fascinated at the beginning, but as it went on, I felt it started to drag and things just got a bit annoying, to tell the truth. I only had 20% or so left to read, so I think I made a fair dent into it, and I'm just not bothered about completing at.
emotional
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This was a very strong and emotional read. I loved it so much! I will add that there is a trigger warning regarding the first chapter but other than that, I highly highly recommend this book to anyone!
4.5 STARS
It took me a couple of days to gather my thoughts about my feelings for this book, because OH MY GOD I was not prepared for it. This book evoked so many emotions in me; disgust, horror, sadness, amazement, fear, happiness, confusion, awe, and so many others. To put it simply, this book was beautiful. In my opinion, this book handled all of the issues that it presents with such understanding, and it tries and succeeds in showing the perspective of someone different, as well as the people around them. Tarttelin did an amazing job of demonstrating what Intersex is from an array of people; from the perspective of Max, an Intersex person, to his family around him, as well as a doctor. Intersex was presented through so many different eyes that you were really able to experience it fully. The first 30 pages were some of the most traumatizing first 30 pages of a book that I had ever read, and it took me a long time to compose myself and continue reading after that. This is the perfect example of a story that is both heart breaking and uplifting, as well as one that is able to introduce a topic that is not talked about enough, and to provide not only a good representation of people who are Intersex, but she also gives the readers a lot of information about it without it seeming like a textbook or wikipedia page. I highly highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Intersex people, and who are looking for a book that touches your heart and shows you what it really means to be human.
It took me a couple of days to gather my thoughts about my feelings for this book, because OH MY GOD I was not prepared for it. This book evoked so many emotions in me; disgust, horror, sadness, amazement, fear, happiness, confusion, awe, and so many others. To put it simply, this book was beautiful. In my opinion, this book handled all of the issues that it presents with such understanding, and it tries and succeeds in showing the perspective of someone different, as well as the people around them. Tarttelin did an amazing job of demonstrating what Intersex is from an array of people; from the perspective of Max, an Intersex person, to his family around him, as well as a doctor. Intersex was presented through so many different eyes that you were really able to experience it fully. The first 30 pages were some of the most traumatizing first 30 pages of a book that I had ever read, and it took me a long time to compose myself and continue reading after that. This is the perfect example of a story that is both heart breaking and uplifting, as well as one that is able to introduce a topic that is not talked about enough, and to provide not only a good representation of people who are Intersex, but she also gives the readers a lot of information about it without it seeming like a textbook or wikipedia page. I highly highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Intersex people, and who are looking for a book that touches your heart and shows you what it really means to be human.
First off, trigger warning for rape. It happens almost right away (in the second chapter) in quite graphic details.
Now, for my thoughts:
- why do people with non-binary gender identities always have to suffer through hell to make for interesting stories...
- I wanted to see a lot more of the doctor and the love interest
- very dense in terms of descriptions of the appearances of people, which I could understand coming from some of the characters, but they were generally boxy and boring and irrelevant to most of the POVs
- it sometimes felt like the doctor was here only for wikipedia info dumps about being intersex
- there seems to be an epidemic of secrecy and needlessly hiding important plot points, which I understood up to a certain point, but there are some times when it was just absurd, likethe main character hiding his rape from his parents, or the "misunderstanding" between the MC and the LI that could have been resolved in two seconds instead of having them break up, but that would have resolved other things too easily and robbed us poor readers of some pointless angst like the mother moving out...
- the voices of the different characters were too similar
- the little brother sounds like an adult trying to write a kid, no surprise there
All in all, an important and much too rare subject, and a not awful book, but the topic itself would have been enough for a good story without the superfluous suffering and drama, had the writing been up to par.
Now, for my thoughts:
- why do people with non-binary gender identities always have to suffer through hell to make for interesting stories...
- I wanted to see a lot more of the doctor and the love interest
- very dense in terms of descriptions of the appearances of people, which I could understand coming from some of the characters, but they were generally boxy and boring and irrelevant to most of the POVs
- it sometimes felt like the doctor was here only for wikipedia info dumps about being intersex
- there seems to be an epidemic of secrecy and needlessly hiding important plot points, which I understood up to a certain point, but there are some times when it was just absurd, like
- the voices of the different characters were too similar
- the little brother sounds like an adult trying to write a kid, no surprise there
All in all, an important and much too rare subject, and a not awful book, but the topic itself would have been enough for a good story without the superfluous suffering and drama, had the writing been up to par.
More 4,5 stars than 5. Loved this book, many moments of goosebumps, sadness and hope.
Only thing that made me give it 4,5 stars is part of the writing.. Some bits could've been shorter imo without it really ruining the story, reading the same thoughts several times wasnt really enjoyable I guess...
This book is (probably) very educational and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about intersex people. And people wanting a good cry, because man, you will cry *wipes away tears*
Only thing that made me give it 4,5 stars is part of the writing.. Some bits could've been shorter imo without it really ruining the story, reading the same thoughts several times wasnt really enjoyable I guess...
This book is (probably) very educational and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about intersex people. And people wanting a good cry, because man, you will cry *wipes away tears*