Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Max: smart, funny, popular, cool, great kisser and intersex. Don’t ask Max what intersex is as he’s not quite sure of all the details, all he really knows is that he’s special as he has male and female parts. Max lets no one of the opposite sex get too close, for Max it’s all stops at the kissing. His parents are a quirky set and they frustrated me many times as I read the book. As Max enters his puberty years, most parents would be ready to address issues with their teens even without having this disorder staring them in the face but his parents seem to forget about Max’s life until things have blown up. I feel for Max, he seems so well adjusted to life and he is, if he forgets about his disorder but he can’t because that is a part of him. Max is assaulted and wandering into a clinic, Max finally feels in control. He’s able to find someone who will talk to him, just him and although he’s been violated, Max knows where he can go for help. No happy trails here, it’s a downward spiral, with implications that I dreaded. Sylvie, she sheds some light on the situation. He wanted more from her and that scared him. He fears intimacy, intimacy with the opposite sex and now he was falling for Sylvie. It was part about falling in love that scared him: wasn’t falling in love supposed to be fun and blissful? Could he take the risk and move forward with Sylvie, he had so much at stake revealing his secret, he would be a lamb brought to the slaughter if the relationship ever ended. For mature readers only as there are some controversial issues and mature subject matter.
