Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he's the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. Now that Max is getting older and his mother won't have as much control, she worries that the facade of effortless excellence she has constructed might crumble. Adding tot he stress, her husband has decided to run for public office. The media spot-light is about to encircle their lives.
The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex. When a childhood friend abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won't his parents talk about it? What else are they hiding? And the biggest question of all: Who is Max Walker really?
A coming of age story like no other, Golden Boy is a fascinating exploration of autonomy, identity, and a family in crisis that you'll read in one sitting and never forget.
4 STARS
tw: on page rape scene, suicide, abortion
Wow, this book is such a heavy one. Because I knew this story was about a main character who is intersex, I assumed we'd have some heavy and emotional moments but this book breaks your heart basically from the get go. Although it was hard to read at times, I still couldn't help but read it in less than 24 hours.
Max is such a cute main character and I love him so much. He just wants to have a typical "normal" high school career. He's on the football team, has crushes on girls, has best friends, and is a golden boy. In the first twenty pages or so Max is raped and the rest of the story is him dealing with the aftermath of what happened to him. It forces him to contemplate his intersex identity and debate what gender he wants to identify as or even if he has to choose at all. Besides his little brother, Daniel, his family and another family they're very close to knows about Max's intersexuality. His parents refuse to bring it up and treat it like a dirty secret, which makes it really hard for Max to learn anything about his body, which makes it even harder for him to explore who he wants to be. Max's Mom and brother Daniel were the most annoying. I really disliked his mom and although I think she was written well, I hated her so much. With Daniel, I found his point of view to be a bit unbelievable. We are supposed to think hes about ten and there are moments where I could kind of see it but most of the moments he acted like he was younger and other times he'd talk like an adult. His character was all over the place for me. Max ends up having a crush on a girl named Sylvie and I loved her and their friendship. I think they're dialogue and the way they interacted was sweet and funny. I wouldn't have minded more of Sylvie in this story.
Like I said earlier, the plot of this story is heartbreaking. It's not fully heavy all the way through, I found most of Sylvie's chapters and moments with Max to be funny and light-hearted. But overall I'd say this book gets heavier than I expected it to. The rape scene that happens in this book isn't violent but it is graphic, so please read with caution if that is something that can trigger you. It's written realistically in the sense that Max's rapist is someone he knows, which is statically a high percentage of rape stories, and the rapist justifies his actions and doesn't see it as hurting Max. It's uncomfortable to read and honestly, I kind of wish I had a trigger warning going into the story so I could better prepare myself for the scene. I think this is an incredibly important story and I would recommend reading it. But I also felt like I couldn't review this book without giving some sort of warning. I think it's an important read for a lot of reasons but especially for the information the reader learns about the topic of intersexuality. I don't know a lot about intersexuality besides the videos on YouTube done by a intersex person (I'll link their channel here) so as emotionally charged this story is, it was also incredibly educational. Especially in the point of view chapters of Archie, Max's doctor.
I found the writing to be very straight forward at times. The information about intersexuality was obviously well researched and explained in a way that made it easy to understand. I enjoyed the moments between Max and Sylvie. I think that the moments between Max's family as a whole was well written and it seemed plausible. My biggest problem with the book I would say is that the author has tackled so many important topics and they don't always seamlessly work together. I think because the writer had so many topics they wanted to touch upon it made me feel like some of the topics weren't as fleshed out. Understandably, the main focus is Max's intersexuality, but we also briefly touch on topics like abortion, rape, suicide, and mix all of those up with the dysfunctional Walker family and sometimes it felt like too much. I don't think it was overly dramatic or like the author had some sort of controversial topic checklist. I just think some of the topics could have been fleshed out more so readers had a clearer message to take away from the story.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. It was so heartbreaking but like I said earlier, it's incredibly important. I think that we need to have more books about intersex characters because it's important to break any stigma and answer the questions people are too worried or embarrassed to ask. This is definitely a book I am so happy I own, and although I am positive I'll need to give my heart some time before re-reading it, I have no doubts that I will re-read it and recommend it to friends.
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