Reviews with content warning for Abortion - Golden Boy

Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin

17 reviews

stellastellaef's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really love this book. It was sad, I mean completely heart wrenching, but I love a book that makes me uncontrollably sob while reading. While being sad it also explains a lot about being intersex and also the medical terms that come with it.

We can also see how Max's mum is embarrassed and wants her son to be her normal, perfect golden boy. Therefore she tries to keep Max's sex a secret. And she also does something unforgivable. Right before Max is about to fall asleep from the anesthesia for his abortion, he changes his mind; he wants to wait longer, he needs more time. His mother chooses to pretend not to hear this, putting her own agenda over her son's. She just wants his (and her own) life to continue smoothly. Although Max said he probably would've chosen to abort anyway it was cruel for his mother to not give him more time to even accept and realise what happened to him.

But I just really love this book. I read it for school but I probably would have read it on my own as well.

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ashadaxa's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

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queenfury's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I'm conflicted in how I feel about this one. I went into it expecting a powerful, painful but necessary read. But after a while, it seems like it turned into trauma porn. Absolutely nothing goes Max's way, and he is stripped of all autonomy in every decision in his life, both due to being "a pushover" who doesn't want to rock his already fragile family and as a "scientific interest." At first, I recognized this as a reflection of his intersexuality and how it didn't feel like it belonged to him, but even after

the characters went, "Gee, maybe we should let Max have control of his own body," after his mother tells the surgeons to proceed with an abortion after Max withdraws his consent, his choices in not wanting to be around his mother anymore and not reporting his rapist to the police or his parents are taken away from him yet again.

I also found the writing itself to be quite bad. The POV shifts are frequent and often unnecessary. Aside from the literal child narrator, who is overly intelligent for his age due to autism (which is never remarked upon by any character), each character has the same narrative voice with almost no distinguishing features. The characters besides Max felt bland and two-dimensional.

Ultimately, I feel like this is a book with important themes that it misses the mark on.

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