February 2014 Debut of the Month.
This controversial book dealing with issues of identity, gender and sexuality and freedom of the press is set to be a modern classic - we think it will get talked about a lot so here’s your chance to get ahead of curve.
Max Walker, and his family, look to have it all - but Max Walker has one whopping great secret that is about to be blown across the press just as his father is running for election. The truth will out in this gritty, cool and brilliantly compelling novel from one of the hippest young authors around.
In addition to our Lovereading expert opinion for Golden Boy a small number of Lovereading members were lucky enough to be invited to review this title - 'I absolutely loved this book. It drew me in from the first chapter and I couldn't wait to read on...A moving, powerful and thought provoking novel which makes for compelling reading.' Val Rowe.
Scroll down to read more reviews.
A piece from Abigail Tarttelin on how she came to write Golden Boy...
'The summer before I wrote Golden Boy, I was thinking a lot about gender. How does it affect us? How do other people treat us differently because of it? How does our experience as a certain gender shape us? For example, in general women are smaller and physically weaker than men - might years of living with this vulnerability make us more cautious?
There were several factors in my life that made gender a theme at that time. Like many writers I am inspired by reading, and that summer I read The Women’s Room by Marilyn French in a quiet park opposite my flat in Camden Town. It was also a bit of a summer of love, and I was thinking about the roles men and women traditionally play in relationships. I also grew up being friends with a lot of guys and was experiencing surprise at that time, in realising that there were differences between us, caused by something as arbitrary as the chromosome combinations we were born with. Gradually these themes developed, and sometime in late September I started to write an email, sending it back and forth to myself, about two brothers, one of whom was not quite, or only, a teenage boy.' Click here to read the full comment.
| Primary Genre | Romance / Relationship Stories |
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Max Walker is the golden boy. Tanned, blond and athletic, he's the perfect son, the perfect sportsman, and the perfect crush for the girls at his school. He's attractive, he's intelligent, he's even nice to his little brother. His Mum is a highly successful criminal lawyer and his seemingly flawless family is about to get even more enviable: his Dad is running for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives. Max is set to pass his exams with flying colours. He's going to make his parents proud.
But Max is special. Max is different. And he has a secret. If his secret gets out, his perfect life will be blown apart and the consequences are unimaginable. Someone knows his secret, someone close to him who could do great damage to Max. In fact he's already started. When Hunter, Max’s childhood friend steps out of his past and abuses his trust in the most terrible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. What is his family hiding from him? Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Will anyone ever want him—desire him— once they know? And the biggest one of all, the question he has to look inside himself to answer: Who is Max Walker, really?
Dealing with issues of identity, sexuality and the freedom of the press, GOLDEN BOY is a novel of ideas for the modern age and is set to be a contemporary classic.
Golden Boy features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Debut Books of the Month, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Romance / Relationship Stories, Fiction, General Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Recommendations
Golden Boy is available in Paperback, Hardback
Golden Boy was written by Abigail Tarttelin and published by Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ) an imprint of Orion Publishing Co
Golden Boy has 408 pages
£9.89
