Rating: 3.5 stars.
None of the Above is about Kristin, a hurdler in high school. Her mother died of cervical cancer when she was a young girl and now lives alone with father. When Kristin takes her relationship with her boyfriend to the next level on homecoming night, she experiences enough pain that she goes to the doctor. But what she finds out isn't what she was expecting: she is intersex, which means that she looks like a girl, but she has boy parts. This book follows Kristin as she struggles with her identity now that her gender is put into question and is found out by her classmates.
I was quite happy to find that one of the characters of this book has the name Faith. I'm a Faith and it's quite hard to find books with characters who share my name. But as I read on, I wasn't too impressed to be honest. This Faith is an Asian girl who is devotely religious and always tries to do the right thing. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not all Faiths are religious! It really bugs me that any Faiths I see in pop culture are either pure good girls or super bad girls. I'm sorry but I'm neither of those and I'm sure I'm not alone. (Rant over)
Anyways, I really learned a lot from this novel. Before reading, I had no idea about what it meant to be intersex. I had no idea about the history of intersex and the support system that now exists for this condition. This novel deals a lot with the topics of gender and sexuality so women and gender studies majors may love this book. I really think None of the Above should be a must read for everyone who wants to read diversely. It's important to learn about how other people live.
I liked how complex of a character Kristin was. She loves running and used to be religious. She is pretty popular in school and is very determined to accomplish her goals. You get to know her a bit and then her diagnosis is introduced into the story and you get to see just how much this shakes up her world. Her father gets nervous that she will get sick like her mother. Kristin watches as she loses friends and her dreams. After a serious amount of self assessment, she has to pull herself out of a depression and figure out who she is all over again. It could be that I was reading this as an audiobook, but I could really feel her emotions.
I should warn those who don't like graphic sex scenes that None of the Above does feature some sex scenes. It's not crazy descriptive or anything (like A Court of Mist and Fury) but I wouldn't say its PG.
The two things I wasn't too big a fan of were the narrator of the audiobook and the ending. The way the narrator talked sometimes kinda bugged me. But I'm a newbie when it comes to audiobooks, so it could be that I have a bias. But the way the narrator said "took a deep breath" drove me nuts. I also found the ending too ambiguous to be satisfying. It left quite a lot left to the imagination.
Overall, I believe this book should be more widely read. If you like to read diversely, you should definitely pick this book up.
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