Golden Boy A Novel by Abigail Tarttelin

I have been hearing a lot about this book over the winter. There has been a lot of great talk about how incredible this book is and so I had to order it. Golden Boy is the story of Max- a 15 year old who is intersex- which means he has both male and female chromosomes and reproductive organs. Yet Max is the Golden Boy- he is an amazing soccer player, a great big brother and strives to always do his best in school. To anyone looking at him from the outside, he is perfect. His father is about to run for parliament and his mother is a successful lawyer. All in all it seems to be a perfect life. Yet, being intersex has challenges that need to be dealt with and Max has never been able to speak about this to his mother and father or his friends. It takes a horrific event to force Max and his family to deal with issues and situations that they hoped would just pass them by. This book is written by an English author, and I don't tend to enjoy that type of writing, but I did enjoy the story. The book is written from many voices which gives the reader an interesting perspective on this situation. You read about what Max thinks and feels and then you see how it looks from his classmates, his little brother and his parents. It is a very interesting way to tell a story. This book is too mature for an elementary classroom, and anyone in high school would want to be careful about reading this book. It certainly opened my eyes to some of the challenges people face. I am glad I read it and feel like Max is a character I will carry with me in my mind for a long time.