A review by angieinbooks
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
3.0
I really don't know what to think about Golden Boy. On one hand, I'm glad this story exists. I'm glad that there's a thoughtful book about being intersex with an extraordinary protagonist. I'm glad the book doesn't attempt to provide easy answers to complex problems. But on the other hand, I can't really say I enjoyed reading it. And it's not the subject matter that's the obstacle here, but the structure of the novel and the characters that fill its pages.
The altering first-person points of view really took me out of the experience and created an uncomfortable distance with the characters, something the first-person point of views are probably trying to prevent. I particularly struggled reading the Daniel and Karen sections. Daniel's because I didn't see the point of having his perspective and Karen's because it made her hard to sympathize with. I guess I didn't care what she was going through, and it didn't help that I didn't like her. But it's hard because I think her perspective and the way she deals with raising an intersex child are valid and probably really honest. In a different format I may have liked/respected her more. But in a fictional novel it just didn't work for me.
But I don't want to be too critical because I think books like Golden Boy are important. I think they should be written and published and be on school reading lists. I just wish this book was a little bit better. But it feels disingenuous to rate it highly solely because of its subject matter.
The altering first-person points of view really took me out of the experience and created an uncomfortable distance with the characters, something the first-person point of views are probably trying to prevent. I particularly struggled reading the Daniel and Karen sections. Daniel's because I didn't see the point of having his perspective and Karen's because it made her hard to sympathize with. I guess I didn't care what she was going through, and it didn't help that I didn't like her. But it's hard because I think her perspective and the way she deals with raising an intersex child are valid and probably really honest. In a different format I may have liked/respected her more. But in a fictional novel it just didn't work for me.
But I don't want to be too critical because I think books like Golden Boy are important. I think they should be written and published and be on school reading lists. I just wish this book was a little bit better. But it feels disingenuous to rate it highly solely because of its subject matter.