Another instance of me coming late to the party. Why do I hesitate to read what so many of my fellow Cannonballers recommend?
So Max Walker is the “golden boy” of his school; he’s the star of the football team, he’s good looking and he gets along with his family. His mother wants to keep her family as perfect as possible and is concerned that her husband has opened their lives up to the public by running for Parliament. The Walkers have been hiding a secret from their friends & neighbors for all of Max’s life- he is intersex. He is equal parts male and female but has been raised as a boy for the majority of his life. One of the few family friends who knows his secret rapes Max and turns his whole world upside down.
At it’s core Golden Boy is a coming of age story. Max Walker may have bigger insecurities and deeper secrets than most boys his age but he just wants to be normal. He wants his friends to like him, he wants the girl he likes to like him back, he wants his brother to stop being so angry and he wants his parents to treat him like an adult. There are some tough topics covered but Tarttelin does an amazing job telling a story about a section of the population people never hear about.
Can you guess the one negative thing I have to say?
Why do so many authors rely on multiple narrators to tell their story??? I get that it’s an easy way to get all points of view across but you can accomplish that in the third person as well. It’s so commonplace now but it continues to drive me crazy when there are more than three people getting their side of the story out!