Golden Boy

Tarttelin, Abigail. Golden Boy. Atria Books, 2013. 

Max is intersex. Max is raped by a childhood friend around page 10 of this book. Max tells no one, goes to the doctor to get the morning after pill and STD testing. Then Max figures out that he's pregnant b/c he vomited after he took the pill so it never got a chance to terminate his pregnancy. He has to tell his parents. The rest of the book is Max dealing with the trauma of rape as well as trying to navigate difficult gender decisions as well as learning what his parents had decided to do when he was born, etc.

This book is told from multiple viewpoints, and it reads a bit like a Jodi Picoult book, except for the very graphic rape scene at the beginning of the book. For that reason alone, I recommend extreme caution when reading, especially if you are a rape survivor. Otherwise, this is an okay book, and it does feature an intersex character, which is fairly unusual even in LGBT literature. I will NOT be putting this book in my junior high library, nor would I likely recommend it to teens, but it's a good book to have in a public library's adult collection.

Recommended for: adults, older teens

Red Flags: Graphic rape scene

Overall Rating: 3/5 stars