Publish date: 5 June 2014
Genre: Young adult (Dystopia)
Author: Shanta Everington
paperback: 152 pag
Publisher: Bridge House (Red Telephone Books)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1907335327
ISBN-13: 978-1907335327
Formats: Paperback and e-book (Mobi only))
Author: Shanta Everington
paperback: 152 pag
Publisher: Bridge House (Red Telephone Books)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1907335327
ISBN-13: 978-1907335327
Formats: Paperback and e-book (Mobi only))
Would it possible to live without gender?
Fifteen year old Jesse lives in a world where babies are born neither male nor female – Compulsory Gender Assignment is carried out at birth. Will the secret she closely guards be found out? Boyfriend Zeus, mother Ana’s Natural Souls, and new friend Ork, leader of We Are One, pull Jesse in different directions, forcing her to make her own mind up about who she really is.
There is a movement in the book world called #weneeddiversebooks and it is all about bringing all kinds of diversity to all levels of books from picture books on up to adult books. The book XY seems to be written just for this purpose. The book XY is written in the future where for whatever reason 91% of the population is born transgendered and the government decides at birth what sex a baby is going to be and takes care of the necessary surgery than. The other 9% are born purely male or purely female. However, there are some people who believe the should raise their children gender neutral and let the child decide for themselves and have the surgery as teens. And yet there are some that never decide and want to stay gender neutral, the later two be totally against the law. But our main character, Jesse, must come to terms for herself with her own sexuality as her mother is one of the one that believe that their children should choose for themselves.
This was a really good book, and even though the book is set in the future there are many good lesson to be learned form it now. First and foremost, we are one people no matter what. Sex or no sex you are, we are, all still just one people, and should be treated as much. This book has a great strong, main character to lead you through a adventure of a lifetime. There is, love, action, hard decisions, love lost, police action, and protests. There is something in this book for everyone. Why not break out of the humdrum of the normal YA books and add a little diversity to collection with this gem.
4 1/2 STARS
About the Author:
Shanta Everington is the author of seven books, including three young adult novels – Give Me a Sign, Boy Red and latest release XY (joint winner of the Red Telephone Books YA Novel Competition). She has had all sorts of jobs in the past, from baking vegan muffins and working as a private tutor to appearing as a guest agony aunt and running a teen sexual health helpline. With an MA in Creative Writing with distinction, Shanta currently teaches Creative Writing with The Open University. She lives in London, UK, with her husband and two children.
Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShantaEverAfter
Publisher website: http://www.trtpublishing.co.uk/xy.html
Author website: www.shantaeverington.co.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/ShantaEverAfter
Amazon USA: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L1P1RPU
Goodreads page: www.goodreads.com/author/show/1419856.Shanta_Everington
The Giveaway:
1 MOBI copy of XY
Embed: a Rafflecopter giveaway
EXCERPT
1
Jesse watches
through the smeared kitchen window as Randy plays football in the back garden
with Zeus. Her brother's face is red and shining with perspiration and
concentration as he tackles Zeus, before skidding on a muddy patch and ending
up sprawled across the grass.
“Yes! Yes! Come on!!!” shouts Zeus,
grinning as he punches the air, shaking droplets of sweat everywhere. He bends
over laughing and then he looks up at the window, catching Jesse's eye before
she looks away into the washing up bowl full of suds, feeling heat creeping
across her chest.
“He's a proper teenage boy your
brother, isn't he?” says Jesse's mother, Ana, smiling to herself as she hands
Jesse a tea towel. “All rough and tumble. I'm so pleased for him that he has
finally become himself.”
Jesse feels her shoulders tense up
as she fingers the green checked cloth.
“Thanks for dinner, Mum,” she says,
not meeting her mother's gaze as she starts drying the dishes. “The lasagne was
lovely. I should go upstairs and do some revision once I've finished this.”
“I can teach you how to make it if
you'd like?” says Ana, beaming at her daughter. “Maybe at the weekend, when
you've not got so much school work to do?”
Jesse doesn't want to learn how to
make lasagne. Or shepherd's pie or pasta bake. She doesn't want to learn to
cook or study needlecraft or budgeting skills or any of the Female Life Skills
on the syllabus. She doesn't want to play football either. She doesn't know
what she wants. It was so much easier before. When she wore white and yellow
and green and grey and played with trains and dolls at home, when Randy and
Jesse shared everything. When they were the same. Before Ana took them to see
Maya and they moved into their first flat, next door to the old man who smelled
of urine. When she didn't have to pretend she'd made a decision. She feels the
corners of her mouth quivering as her mother stares into her face.
“Oh Jesse, don't worry,” says her
mother, rubbing her shoulders. “Your turn will come when you are ready. How are
you feeling about things now, darling?”
Jesse shrugs her shoulders and tries
hard to smile but somehow she can't quite manage it. Her mother takes the plate
Jesse is busy drying out of her hands and places it on the scratched wooden
work top.
“Don't worry, darling. I only ever
want you to be happy. You've got to be ready, Jesse. Remember what happened to
George.”
Jesse nods. She has heard the story
of Uncle George so many times, it is etched on her brain, like a recurring
nightmare.
“I think Zeus
might have a crush on you,” says Randy over breakfast the next morning.
The family are in the kitchen,
sitting around the big, old, oak dining table, a hand-me-down from one of Ana's
friends. Most of their belongings are cast-offs. They are used to relying on
the charity of others connected to Natural Souls. Ana has set the table with
cereal, orange juice, toast and home-made preserves.
“Shut up,” says Jesse, spooning
muesli into her mouth.
“Seriously. Didn't you notice the
way he kept watching you yesterday when you came out into the garden with your
tight top on? I don't think it was just your lemon ice lollies he was drooling
at!”
Jesse feels her heart beating a
little faster. Zeus is nice, she thinks, but nothing can happen. Zeus is one of
the Nine Per Cent. He wouldn’t want her. At least not until afterwards. If she
goes through with it.
“I know you like him!” continues
Randy in a sing-song voice. “Don't worry, I won't tell him your secret!”
“Randy,” says Ana sharply, pouring
milk into her bowl. “Don't wind your sister up before school.”
“I'm not!” protests Randy, rocking
his chair backwards and stuffing toast into his mouth. “I'm just saying!”
Jesse carries on eating, feeling her
cheeks burn.
Randy gets up from the table and
whispers to Jesse on his way out of the kitchen, “He likes you, he likes you!”
Once her brother is out of earshot,
Jesse turns to her mother.
“Mum, can I ask you a question?” she
says, playing with her spoon, turning it over and over and watching her
reflection morph into something grotesque.
“Anything,” says Ana.
“How old were you when you had your
first boyfriend? I know it was different for you. You weren't born like us
but...”
“I was fifteen,” replies Ana without
hesitating. “The same age you are now. His name was Jack. He was a friend of my
brother's too. He was born like you but he was a boy by the time I met him. It
didn't last, of course.”
“What happened?”
“You mean why didn't it last?” asks
Ana, absent-mindedly picking crumbs up off the table. “We were just kids. First
love. It wasn't even love. When George died, well... Jack's family moved away. It's just as well
or I wouldn't have met your father and there would have been no Randy or
Jesse.”
She looks up at Jesse with a bright
smile. Sometimes Jesse wonders what lies beneath her mother's happy face.
“I wish Dad was here,” says Jesse.
“I wish he hadn't left us.”
“I know, darling, but we have to be
strong for one another. Think about what I said about seeing Maya again soon.
Now, you don't want to be late for school, do you?”
Jesse gets up and takes her plates
to the sink before grabbing her school bag and heading over to school. Today
she has history, biology, religious education and sex education. It will not be
a good day. Her bag weighs heavily on her shoulder. She thinks about the text
books it contains and what they are teaching her.
“Ah, Jesse, so
glad you could join us,” says Mr Hope as she slips into her biology class five
minutes late, after a last minute visit to the toilets to make sure she looks
right.
“Sorry, sir,” comes her feeble
reply. She feels her school dress stick to her back as she finally removes the
heavy bag and sits down at her desk.
Jesse looks around the classroom at
the other girls. Debra Simmonds is painting her fingernails under the desk. But
she isn't like Debra, is she? All the boys want Debra because everyone knows
that Debra was born pure. She is one of the Nine Per Cent like Zeus. Jesse
isn’t like Debra. She isn’t like the other girls, either. The assigned girls.
What if they find out what she is? She wonders how Randy is getting on over at
the boys' school. It is all right for him, now he's had the operation. But
Jesse is scared. She doesn't know if she can go through with it.
Artemis smiles at her, through her
spidery black fringe. They weren't friends before. But since Randy started
going out with her it seems that Artemis wants to hang around with Jesse all
day.
“Everybody turn to page one hundred,
please,” instructs Mr Hope.
Jesse knows what is on that page and
she doesn't want to look at it. The human reproductive system. But she has to.
It is the same in the other classes; lessons all tell her she is wrong. Her
mother is wrong. She wishes it had been done to her when she was born, like
everyone else. Why did her mother make her have to choose when?
“Hi,” says Artemis, as they walk to
the lunch hall.
Chairs scrape along the floor and
the cutlery clatters. The air thick with the smell of over cooked food and
teenage hormones. Jesse isn't hungry, not after looking at those diagrams all
morning.
“Randy says Zeus likes you,” says
Artemis, flicking back her long, black hair as they queue up for their food.
Jesse can see four tiny holes in
Artemis's earlobe, where she has taken her studs out for school.
“I dunno about that,” mumbles Jesse,
wishing she could be on her own again, as usual. She normally avoids
conversation whenever she can, sits in the corner gulping down her lunch,
pretending to read a magazine, flicking idly over the fashion pages full of
celebrities that all look the same and scanning the problem pages to see if
there is ever a question from anyone like her. But there never is.
“No, he really does, he told Randy
and everything. He wants to go out with you. I know he looks confident and
everything but he's really quite shy. So, he's sort of asked Randy to ask me to
ask you out for him!”
Jesse freezes as the dinner lady
with luminous blue eye shadow spoons vegetable curry onto her plate.
“Don't you like him?” persists
Artemis, grabbing an orange juice and passing one to Jesse.
Jesse shrugs and picks up her
cutlery.
“He's gorgeous and really clever.
What's not to like?”
“Maybe I'm just not ready for a
boyfriend,” says Jesse, as Artemis follows her to her usual table in the corner
and sits down.
“Oh, I get it,” says Artemis, waving
her hands about. “You're scared! You're scared about having your first
boyfriend. What, have you never kissed a boy before or something?”
Jesse bites her lip and slowly
shakes her head.
“What, never?” asks Artemis, holding
her spoon mid-air. “Not even with mouths closed? What about at the youth club
disco? Come to think of it, I never saw you dance with anyone. Gosh, girl, I've
got some work to do with you! Stick with Auntie Artemis and I'll soon have you
coming out of your shell. I like a challenge.”
Artemis beams at Jesse as she tucks
into a piece of naan bread. Jesse smiles and picks at hers. It would be good to
have someone to talk to. She can see why Randy likes being around Artemis.
She's bubbly and warm and seems to know what to do. Randy was inexperienced
like her before Artemis but now look at him.
“You're right,” says Jesse. “I am
scared.”
But not for the reasons Artemis
thinks. She must never find out the truth.
