None of the Above
- tarascates
- May 9, 2017
- 2 min read
Now in paperback—this relatable and groundbreaking story for the LGBTQIA+ audience is about a teenage girl who discovers she was born intersex . . . and what happens when her secret is revealed to the entire school. Perfect for fans of If I Was Your Girl and Ask the Passengers.
When Kristin Lattimer is voted homecoming queen, it seems like another piece of her ideal life has fallen into place. She’s a champion hurdler with a full scholarship to college and she’s madly in love with her boyfriend. In fact, she’s decided that she’s ready to take things to the next level with him. But Kristin’s first time isn’t the perfect moment she’s planned—something is very wrong. A visit to the doctor reveals the truth: Kristin is intersex, which means that though she outwardly looks like a girl, she has male chromosomes, not to mention boy “parts.” Dealing with her body is difficult enough, but when her diagnosis is leaked to the whole school, Kristin’s entire identity is thrown into question. As her world unravels, can she come to terms with her new self? Incredibly compelling and sensitively told, None of the Above is a thought-provoking novel that explores what it means to be a boy, a girl, or something in between.
The time is ripe for a book of this caliber with all the changes occurring on political levels as well as within society itself. People talk more today and at younger ages about what gender means and how it defines their identity. I.W. Gregorio’s novel takes this societal shift and built her story around it to create a very personal outlook on something that even with all the progress still makes people uncomfortable.
Her writing evokes this intense emotional response as you sit on the front lines to watch the heartbreaking challenges her character Kristin faces. In some ways Kristin undergoes her own version of the Stages of Grief as the ‘normal’ life she thought she was living gets upended with a difficult diagnosis. Then before she truly has time to process what this means on a personal level her private life is leaked on a public level.
You can’t help but ride the emotional spectrum of anger, sadness and betrayal at what is done to this amazing and sweet character particularly as reality hits and you realize this could very well be a mirror to what is happening in society today. This book needs to be read, shared and remembered so that society can advance to where treatment like what Kristin faces in this book will become only a memory in history books.
Thank you to Netgalley and Balzer & Bray for allowing me to review this book.
*synopsis and pic from netgalley.com