2/5 stars
It requires more writing expertise for books to tackle a tough subject. While I admire what Alex As Well (Goodreads | Amazon) attempted, portraying a character who was intersex and struggling with her identity and to a lesser extent her sexuality, it just didn't live up to the potential of the topic.
The characters never really come to life, not even Alex feels real despite spending the whole book inside her head. Her parents are the worst developed, turning them either into villains or incompetent placeholders that the story just pushes around like pieces on a chessboard.
There are some basic premises about the book that are hard to believe. The story begins with Alex enrolling into a new school, just walking in the front door without a birth certificate or any information (this is when she goes from living as a boy to a girl). The school half-heartedly seeks her birth certificate. The whole enrollment felt deux ex machina because the story needed Alex to start a new school but had no real way of accomplishing that. I also felt like when Alex announced (out of nowhere) she was a vegetarian, it was a plot device so her mother could slip her medicine without telling her. It just felt out of place within the story.
There's not much good that I can say about this book. It's just meh all around, which is disappointing because the subject matter could have been really interesting.
I received an advanced reading e-book in exchange for an honest review.
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