Review by emtees - None of the Above

emtees 's review for:

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio

3.5

dark emotional informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I think this was a pretty good book overall, with a solid introduction to intersex issues and representation, but there were a few things about it that were just very strange and threw off my enjoyment of the story.

As far as she knows, Kristin is an ordinary teenage girl. But when her first attempt to have sex is far more painful than it should be, Kristin gets worried that something is wrong and goes to her doctor, where she learns she is intersex. As if that isn’t enough to deal with, her diagnosis gets leaked at school and her life falls apart. She’s bullied, her relationships with her friends crumble when she believes one of them must have spread the rumors, her boyfriend breaks up with her and accuses her of tricking him into dating “a man” and there are even threats to have her kicked off the girl’s track team for “cheating.” Unable to face the harassment, Kristin withdraws into herself.

None of the Above follows a lot of the expected beats of an “issues” book, but that isn’t a bad thing; a lot of those beats work very well here. Kristin goes through denial and depression, then starts to find new friends who are more accepting. She learns about her condition, giving Gregorio a chance to educate the reader. She makes the smart choice not to have Kristin try to represent all intersex people; instead, Kristin learns a lot about how different intersex people view everything from sexual orientation and gender identity to medical interventions, then makes her own choices based on what’s right for her, not some attempt at good representation. This mostly works, and there are some nice moments. There are also some that don’t work as well. (For example, Kristin learns about Castor Semenya, the Olympic runner who was temporarily banned from competing after it was found that she was intersex. It’s a chance to address the legal advances made by intersex athletes, but Gregorio also has Kristin react negatively to Semenya’s masc appearance. Which is a realistic reaction from a girl who has just found out she’s intersex and is panicking about how well she “passes,” but given that Semenya is, you know, a real person, it was kind of uncomfortable to read that reaction.)

Overall, though, I liked Kristin a lot as a character and I enjoyed her relationships with her father, her friends, and her love interest. I really liked that Gregorio showed her befriending other intersex people and learning from their experiences. I liked that all her issues weren’t resolved by the end of the book, though she was on her way to more self-acceptance. But then, in the last few chapters, there were some really strange decisions that lowered my opinion of the book.

The first had to do with Kristin finding out how her private information got spread around the school. It turns out

that it was her friend Faith who accidentally got the rumor started. I had figured that that Faith was the culprit earlier. But what I hadn’t guessed - and what still doesn’t make sense - is that it happened because Faith was trying to commiserate with Kristin’s boyfriend about her not being able to get pregnant. This is treated like an innocent mistake Faith made, and so Kristin forgives her. Which was baffling to me. Okay, Faith seems to be a sweet but dumb person who didn’t realize that the boyfriend would freak out, but she still thought it was okay to talk about Kristin’s business to her boyfriend without asking if Kristin had told him yet, and she thought it was normal to act like Kristin not being able to have kids was something that he needed sympathy over! It would be a weird thing to do if this guy was Kristin’s husband, but they are just high school kids. And yet, no one called Faith out on this. Kristin’s best friend Vee then even says that Kristin needs to get over herself and stop thinking that having her business spread around town is that big of a deal, and Kristin agrees that maybe she’s been reacting too strongly. Which… what?? The whole school was making fun of her! People literally recognized her in public as the intersex kid.

But Vee isn’t the only person who suddenly starts acting like Kristin being upset about all that’s happened to her is overreacting. She gets the same response from her new intersex friend Gretchen, who doesn’t understand why Kristin wants to keep her status secret and accuses her of being ashamed. It’s a valid accusation, or it would be if not for the fact that, in one of the very last chapters of the book, a guy Kristin has been flirting with suddenly recognizes her as the intersex girl everyone is talking about and responds by violently assaulting her. This scene is legitimately scary and comes out of nowhere, and there is absolutely no time to deal with it in the book. Instead, Kristin’s new love interest saves her, she decides not to press charges because she doesn’t want to make a big thing (!), and then the story wraps up with one more chapter where Kristin and her father resolve some issues that have nothing to do with what just happened and Kristin decides she’s ready to go back to normal life. WHAT?? No chance for her to talk to Gretchen (who was there) about how she’s just proven that not everyone will accept her after all? No addressing that this was a hate crime? No chance to process the trauma of the assault? It was such a weird addition to the story if it wasn’t going to be used to do more than give the love interest a moment to be a hero and I was really annoyed with it.)

Content Warnings