None of the Above

Dr. Gregorio is a urologist by day, turned YA author by night. She set out to write a book inspired by her first patient with a disorder of sexual differentiation. It's a cute book that clearly thinks of itself as An Important Lesson On Tolerance, and as such comes off a little on-the-nose. There's “flavor” added to try to flesh out the book, but a lot of it is pretty shallow, and of course the happy ending includes the main character finding (heterosexual) romance, because it's not a book to challenge the status quo of 17-year-olds-must-have-boy-friends-to-be-happy. But it is a cute YA novel in which both the adults and teens are ultimately well-meaning. So if feel-good YA romance is your thing, cool! I wanted a little more nuance.

P.S. Ahhhh, why did no one offer the protagonist herniorraphy without gonadectomy? She was freaking out about having visible hernias. Those can be repaired before you make a decision about gonads. I'm pretty sure a urologist knows this better than I do. I got very distracted about this.

Appreciated a book about an intersex character that makes clear the difference between sex, gender identity, and sexuality. Good diversity of secondary characters and glad that all the characters made responsible choices in their teen decisions (sex with condoms and drinking with DDs and parental consequences). However, the writing was just so/so, the running was ok but not super realistic to track athletes, and there was too much of a “marriage plot” with the book ending only when the female-identifying main character received positive affirmation of desire from her male object of interest. Had a chance to really make this book super affirming and kind of blew it with such a stereotypical ending and lack of attention to details. 3/5

utálok kevés pontot adni fontos témával foglalkozó regényekre, de annyira tipikus volt a körítés, hogy egyszerűen nem voltam elragadtatva tőle. ettől függetlenül nagyon érdekes és tanulságos ez a történet, csak lehetett volna jobban is tálalni. mindenesetre érdemes elolvasni, ha kevés vagy egyáltalán semmilyen fogalmunk sincs, mit is jelent az egyre terebélyesedő lgbtqia+ rövidítésben az i betű.

egyébként pedig közvetve a könyvnek köszönhetően megutáltam amy schumert.

I'm going to resist the urge here to give this four stars just because I have never read anything like it before. Truthfully, it's an interesting topic that could generate wonderful conversations about awareness, empathy, and acceptance. There are some great reasons to read None of The Above, but I found the writing to be overly melodramatic. Remember After School Specials? This reads like one. Everything bad that could possibly happen to Kristin does. Her friends are asshats. Dad is no help because he is damaged goods. There were points in the story in which I think Kristin reacts like an adult would THINK she would react instead of how a teenager would really react. I'm sorry if that's unclear. There are also way too many scenes of hiding in the bathroom. I think it happens about seven times.
I am not in any way trying to play down the severity of the situation Kristin is experiencing, but her reactions do not seem to go beyond denial. What I think I would have liked to have read was more stories, the intersex diagnosis seems to be very different for each individual, had Kristin joined a support group then maybe the reader could have had even more insight into what someone with the diagnosis could be dealing with (thus becoming even more aware). I can't believe Kristin would not have spent more time researching her own condition.
Overall, a good read for jumping of into discussion. I'm afraid The Fault in Our Stars has set a bar for me as far as medical stories go, so I'm hard to please.