Pojkarna

by Jessica Schiefauer

På dagarna utstår Kim tillsammans med sina tjejkompisar Bella och Momo killarnas kränkningar, men på nätterna dricker de av nektarn från en fantastisk blomma som förvandlar dem till pojkar.

Kim kan inte få nog av friheten i en annan kropp och blir som pojke också kär i Tony. Tillsammans upplever de både spänning och attraktion, men som tjej är inte Kim intressant för Tony.

Pojkarna är en tonårsskildring som ingen annan. Den kombinerar det plågsamt vardagliga med det vackert magiska i en berättelse om uppväxt, förvandling, kärlek och systerskap.

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Swedish Literature, Queer, LGBT, Fiction, Read For School

188 pages, Hardcover

First published August 4, 2011

About the author

Jessica Schiefauer är född 1978 och uppvuxen i Kungälv utanför Göteborg. Hon har gått skrivarutbildningar på Fridhems folkhögskola, Bona folkhögskola och Nordiska folkhögskolan. Hon har även studerat svenska, engelska och litteraturvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet och har en pedagogisk examen i språk och kreativt skrivande.Vid sidan om författarskapet arbetar Jessica med kurser i språk och skrivande.

Reviews

[Elena · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book... it's special, to say the least.
I actually saw the movie before I got the book, and already at that point, I knew what I was getting into. I thought the movie was pretty bad, and the fact that the characters are supposed to be 14 was absolute BS, and it was weird as hell. Which just made me want the book. So, thankfully, I didn't get into this book with very high expectations.
But BOY, was my expectations taken to another level. I expected something on par with the movie, and to some level it was, but it was way weirder. The way it constantly slams the puberty symbolism in our faces was annoying, and weirdly written, and some of the scenes were cringey as hell.

*SPOILERS*

The worst aspects of the book:

1. The characters are supposed to be 14. In the movie, this didn't play a big role, it was simply (and stupidly) mentioned once which ruined the entire thing for me. The main characters are three innocent, childish girls, and with the snap of a finger they drink, smoke, smoke weed, rob houses, fight, drive cars??? Please, no. A beer, fine. A party or two, or sneaking out at night, of course! But this was just over the top. And murder? I can't even. If it was like in the movie, where them being fourteen didn't matter the slightest, fine. But this book is obviously about puberty and "women's bodies" and periods and all the things that happen in puberty are supposed to play such a big part here. These characters wouldn't go do all this bullshit. At least not all of them.

2. The characters have no depth. Bella likes plants (she is basically just a plot device, her interest in said plants is what makes this story exist). Momo is creative and likes to sew and have fun. Kim wants to be a boy, to be free. Tony is an ass. That's about where their character development stops. They have no real reason for their actions (except Kim running off with Tony and drinking the nectar). When not even the main character has a personality, that's when you should back the fuck off.

3. Where are the parents? Bella's mom is gone and her dad is depressed. Momo's parents are creative. Kim's parents are mentioned three or four times in the entire book (and even less in the movie), and none of them have any impact on the story. They don't notice their kid sneaking out at night, nor does she suffer any consequences for it. They mention the fact that her parents are worried about her and her friends being too childish, and that she is "becoming a woman" and so on, which could have been interesting to read about. And when she drives off in the end? Do the parents make any fucking effort whatsoever? Some signs, and what? Nothing. The parents might as well not exist. They could all have been orphans and the story wouldn't have changed at all.

4. Tony x Kim. Fine, Kim falls in love with Tony. I can buy that. I can, however, not buy that Kim would fall in love with him after ONE day, where he gave her a beer and made her commit a crime. Even the fucking movie developed this way better, and the movie was bad. And the fact that nothing happened in the end? Tony obviously did like boy Kim, and Kim unquestionably loved Tony. And while their relationship would have been terrible and abusive, the fact that it didn't happen was almost worse than how it did turn out. The scene where Kim describes that if she had done something when Tony lay on top of her with that boner, there could have been love, a possibility, but she didn't do anything (even though the only thing she had wanted so far through the entire book was exactly that) and that was that. And then Tony was ashamed and it was never mentioned again. They might as well just have been friends if that was the case. Why wouldn't Kim kiss Tony at that moment? Several other scenes prove that Kim is a horny ass motherfucking teen, and she WAS in love with Tony, so the chances that she wouldn't kiss him are inexplicably small.

5. The cringeworthy scenes. If you've read the books, chances are you know exactly which scenes I'm talking about. These scenes were unnecessary, stupid, and did nothing but gross me out. The infamous masturbation scene is a stunning example. Here's a tip to the author: WE KNOW THAT KIM WANTS TO BE A BOY WITHOUT HER MASTURBATING TO HER OWN BOY REFLECTION. I did not need that scene, Jesus Christ. We know that she wants to be a boy from the back of the fucking book or at least the first time she's describing her dreams, where she is "tall and has a deep voice". She talks about her body like her "girl body" over and over, she mentions how perfect she feels in the boy body. We know. I know this book is (for some reason) YA, but even teens aren't that stupid. They know that Kim wants to be a boy. Her wanting to be a boy so much that she actually wants to HAVE SEX WITH HER REFLECTION (as in, she wants her reflection to come out of the mirror and touch her in dirty ways), we do not need. Please.
And the skinny-dipping scene. Tony and Kim skinny dipping? Fine, whatever, they're young and horny and weird. Playing in the water with each other? Once again, fine. Describing how Tony's pubic hair feels against you and his "wrinkled dick"? I did not need that. You take it one step too far, Jess.
I'm not going to bring up all the scenes, but yeah, you probably get the picture. I am all for the whole coming-of-age, exploring yourself thing, and I could have accepted some fucking masturbation scene (because all these books have them, even the good ones), but not to your own reflection.

6. The lack of significant actions and consequences. This book basically describes scenes in Kim's life, and while they are, for the most part, in chronological order, that's basically the only connection. Nothing that Kim does matters. Murdering someone? Fine, whatever. Commonplace, right? Robbing houses? Who's ever gotten into trouble for that? Sneaking out at night? Ugh, maybe her parents are just extremely heavy sleepers. Bullshit.
Even the small things don't get any consequences. Nothing ever leads to anything. Momo and Kim basically have sex and it never gets mentioned again? In the entire book after that scene? Bullshit. Her running from home doesn't have any consequences and isn't explained. She's awesome at living off of nothing.

7. The ending. What was that? The last part, in general. Was it years later? Months? Why doesn't she go to her parents? Is she a boy now, permanently? How did she survive all those years/months? The author obviously thinks that going off and dancing with your old friends (who literally encouraged you to run away in the first place) is a good way of ending things. I'm all for symbolism and that bullshit, but try to interpret this and you just realize that it was lazy.

It had some good aspects, I guess. The writing had a pretty nice flow (with some minor exceptions) and the language was good. Can't really come up with anything else.

But terrible or not, it was amusing somehow. I don't recommend it for the life of me, but I don't regret reading it. That's why it still gets two stars from me.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for school - schooled for life!

Swedish young adult fiction surprises me quite often, as it tackles the harsh questions of life without ignoring the entertainment factor that our easily distracted youth needs to find their path into a book.

Imagine you can secretly change your gender and experience a male instad of a female body and all it implies, both regarding physical and social roles? Imagine you step into that other body each night, until you get addicted to the new life you create for yourself, and until your confusion is leading you towards violence?

You have got to be able to live with yourself, whatever impression society has of you!

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/2wvduWOMrKM

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok. This will be a long one. So I enjoyed almost all of Girls Lost by Jessica Schiefauer, translated by Saskia Vogel (although the title puzzles me as the Swedish translates to "The Boys"). In the short book, three girls on the verge of puberty discover a flower whose nectar allows them to transform into boys. At first they enjoy the freedom of being able to walk down streets without fear, avoiding sexual harassment and predatory stares. But with time, the flower begins to pull them apart. Because Bella and Momo are ready to stop playing—but for Kim, it's no longer a game.

Kim feels right in a boy's body. She loves it. In that body, she falls in love with Tony, another boy, who gets her into a life of crime and adrenaline. The story does something fascinating here by showing how for Bella and Momo, it's only temporary escape from the inherent fear that comes with how the world treats their girl bodies, just like the fun 'masquerade' parties of their childhood that allow them to shed their personas in lieu of ones that feel more bold, more powerful, less fragile. But Kim experiences gender euphoria in this male body, and it's not something she can do without. She needs it, more and more.

What worries me is that Kim's constant use of the flower drains it. Bella worships the flower, which seems to be a divine feminine object with a consciousness of its own. Their small tastes of nectar were ok, but it seems that her desire to be a boy all of the time is sucking the life out of the flower. So Kim's friends treat her continued use of the nectar as a betrayal, almost an addiction, and an act of violence and greed. Kim's love for her boy body is framed as not just impossible, but damaging. It's something she has to let go. It is something that has changed her for the worse. Without spoiling the events, Kim eventually flees and declares to a strange that she is not a boy, but also describes herself as a person inside a girl-body. At the end, she looks in the mirror and smiles at her reflection: she sees a boy with a woman cast over him like a veil. Shortly after, in the final scene of the book, grown-up woman Bella is luscious, with swelling breasts, adorned by a cloud of butterflies. She says to Kim, "She's waiting for us."

On one hand, it seems like a book about gender dysphoria in which, at the end, Kim is happy with themself. Which is great, and I almost felt satisfied there. But honestly, my brain keeps returning to this image: a girl-body who wants to be a boy, draining the life out of a divine feminine flower as two budding women watch, in order to escape her girl-body. That was the wrong thing. The right thing is the flower alive, thriving, the divine feminine represented in Bella, its cultivator. The right thing is Kim's slow acceptance of her body as it is. It felt like the book was saying to Kim, "You don't need to change your body. You don't need to be a boy for real. You can feel masculine energy and be a woman. But your desire to actually be a boy is poisoning the well of the divine feminine—once you accept that you can't change your womanhood, women will be better for it."

And look, maybe if Kim's only desire really was the power and freedom of masculinity, like it was for Momo and Bella, I could give this statement a pass. But Kim's gender dysphoria and euphoria are just too vivid. So for me, it keeps feeling like this book is telling a trans boy that if he just gets over the idea of transforming his body or in anyway 'actually' being a boy, and accepts that women can be multitudes, he will be very happy as a woman. It feels like there's a sharp undercurrent of that old prejudice that trans men are actually just women who want to shed the oppression of being women. It feels like it's calling hormone therapy and gender affirmation surgery a betrayal of womanhood. And I can't possibly read this book and say that Kim's boy-body was just a mask, because it isn't written that way. Kim felt right in the boy-body, and felt pain when it was taken away.

So after enjoying so much of this book, and even, for the first half, thinking that I would give it a full five stars, I'm left feeling that it was maybe actually very transphobic. There are other interpretations, I know, because for about 75% of this book, I was ready for an ending where Kim confronts Momo and Bella, where he finally explains to them his truth, that he is a boy and that's why his boy-body fits him so well, that's why he needs the nectar. I didn't need it to all work out, but I thought it was a novel about gender nonconformity. I thought that alongside the story of Momo and Bella and their fears and pain as women, it was also a story of Kim's queer realization that a boy-body was his proper body. But when I finished it on that note of divine femininity, it just left a heavy taste of TERF in my mouth.

I will add two quick notes here though of where I disagree with other reviewers of this book. First, acknowledging that the powerlessness and pain of sexual harassment and violence damages girls at a very young age and makes them feel helpless and trapped, is not calling girls naturally fragile, and acknowledging that a patriarchal society encourages men to be silent, hide their emotions, and be overly physical is not saying that all men are trash. Also, this book is not too mature for young readers. Teens are exactly the ones dealing with issues of gender dysphoria and new bodies. And for reviewers claiming that drugs, sexual harassment/assault, crime, etc. are not things that 14-year-olds deal with, I hate to break this to you, but they are.

Content warnings for sexual assault, violence, toxic masculinity, drug use, gender dysphoria, sexism, suicidal ideation and behavior.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, so this is probably the worst book I've ever read. If it weren't a school-book I probably never would've finished it.

[Demika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Såg filmen för mer än ett år sen och kände att jag BEHÖVDE läsa boken bakom, och blev verkligen inte besviken! Den blandar magi, genus, saga, tonårsfrustration, kvinnlig vänskap, den manliga blicken, sexualitet, natur och kärlek på ett skickligt vis som kommer stanna med mig länge. Kim är en otroligt komplex och givande huvudkaraktär, och tror alla kan känna igen sig i åtminstone något av det hon upplever. Känslan av en kropp som förändras och begränsas pga stela könsroller, önskan att vilja bli någon eller något annat… SÅ BRA skildrat. En viktig, spännande och berusande bok som jag tycker fler borde läsa :)

[Noa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hm. Jag vill börja med att säga att boken var minst sagt speciell... originell, absolut, men det gör den inte nödvändigtvis mycket bättre. Jag tycker att Schiefauer har gjort en relativt välskriven bok men, kalla mig trångsynt kanske, själva storylinen håller inte genom boken.

Det handlar om tre tjejer som förvandlar sig till pojkar med en speciell växt (bara här blev jag själv skeptisk, säger sig självt kanske). Kim, huvudkaraktären porträtterar möjligen den förvirring varje tonåring upplever, sökandet efter en identitet. Men det blir ganska far off när historien flippar och man helt plötsligt befinner sig långt bort från den ursprungliga idén av boken och frågar sig själv vad bokens konflikt, handling och uppgörelse egentligen är...Nja.

[Anna | the.perks.of.being.anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Den här är en väldigt speciell bok, finns vissa delar jag gillar och vissa delar som jag tycker är för konstiga. Språket är väldigt målande och oftast så gillar jag det, MEN... alla halverotiska beskrivningar av blomman... det är lite för mycket för min del och fick mig faktiskt att må lite illa.

Recension finns på Boktycke.

[Matilde Zannin · Rating 2 out of 5]

transphobic, biphobic & very misogynistic. absolutely wouldn't recommend it

[Josefine]

Jag har medvetet undvikit att läsa den här boken eftersom jag var säker på att den skulle vara på ett visst sätt. Jag hade helt fel, den var mycket annorlunda mot vad jag tänkt. Men jag är inte säker på att det var så mycket bättre? Det finns saker jag verkligen gillar med den, framför allt den drömska tonen. Men när förvandlingen sedan slår till och Kim börjar sitt utsvävande pojkliv tappar jag intresset. Först tänker jag att jag bara får ta mig förbi det men snart förstår jag att historien med Kim och Tony är själva kärnan. Det gör mig besviken för jag tycker inte alls att den är intressant. På något sätt lyckas alltid böcker som ska handla om tjejer slå över och handla om killar istället. (Jag är så klart medveten om att boken heter Pojkarna men att den skulle vara så bokstavlig hade jag inte förväntat mig).

[Bee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was… difficult to like. At least for me. The language is incredibly embroidered and ye old timey, I took issue with a few of the spelling choices and it irked me a little too much while I was reading. As the story got more intricate I could look past it a little more, but it didn’t reach a point where I started enjoying it.

The book is called “Pojkarna” (the boys), and it tells a story tied to an incredibly binary view of men and women, or girls and boys as it tells it. The boys are violent, abusive, taunting, strong, criminal, reckless, and irresponsible. They also commit sexual crimes at two different points in the book in a way that doesn’t make any of the characters the least bit surprised, which is I guess the most upsetting part of it. The girls are labeled fragile and weak, they can choose to either hide their female bodies and hate them, or flaunt them and risk getting violated. The boys have freedom and use it to mistreat girls, while the girls are victims. I got very annoyed with this depiction, and even though it might be intentionally skewed for a specific purpose it wasn’t particularly inspiring or enjoyable to read.

At the beginning of the book the three main girls (Kim, Bella and Momo) are mousy fourteen-year-old girls that get picked on by the boys. They like to play dress-up, with intricate masks and costumes, and play games together in disguise. They long for the freedom that the boys have to move around in the world, and after a sexual assault to one of the girls it reaches a breaking point. One of the girls, Bella, likes to garden and she receives a mysterious plant in the mail one day, that when planted produces a flower that contains a fluid that’s yellow and sweet. When the girls taste the fluid they are turned into boys for the night, before turning back into themselves again in the morning. Bella and Momo treat it like a fun game, but eventually get tired of it. Kim, however, feels completely right in the body of a boy, and quickly becomes addicted to it. As boys they meet a gang of other boys, that drink, drive, shoot, roughhouse and burgle… and Kim starts to develop feelings for one of the boys. Soon, the plant starts to crumble under the weight of producing enough fluid to sustain Kim’s nightly transformations, and conflict starts to brew between the three friends.

This book tackles some interesting gender and identity issues, and Kim’s struggle between the female and the male body is fascinatingly told. All three of them struggle with the transformation from girls to women, but Kim’s struggle takes on a slightly different form. However, I wish it had been more nuanced in the way it portrayed girls and boys, if the intention was to talk about gender/sex and the conflict between different roles. The friction between the fantasy aspect and the realism aspect made it a little hard to really enjoy either of the themes. I wasn’t even sure if the world they’re living in is supposed to feel real or not. The girls and their dress up games are heavily contrasted with the dirt and violence and hurt that the boys’ world represent. It could be seen as a conflict between childhood and adulthood, but it’s VERY dark and exaggerated in a way that tastes sour to me. There are as I mentioned TWO instances of sexual assault, one of them a rape, and there is a lot of other violence as well… in a way that felt almost gratuitous. I was also really annoyed with the fact that there are no consequences for anything in the book, there is also no context to anything, nor any closure. It left me very unsure of what it all was for in the end.

This book has won Sweden’s most prestigious youth-literature award… and sure, it was different from a lot of other things I’ve read. In my mind that’s not necessarily a good thing, but I suppose the power to induce strong feelings is an achievement on its own for a book. Personally, I’m not a fan though.

[Jennifer Hahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

**Efter att ha funderat lite höjer jag den till en svag trea istället för en stark tvåa. Den lutar mer mot bra än mot dålig. Mest för att den väcker tankar och funderingar. Den lägger en bra grund för diskussion mycket eftersom så mycket lämnas öppet för läsaren att tolka själv. Jag står dock fast vid att den som bok ändå inte fungerade för mig.


2,5

Det är väldigt svårt att ge den här boken ett betyg. Jag förstår varför många älskar den. Den är välskriven (jag har inget negativt att säga om språket) och den för intressanta och viktiga diskussioner om könsidentitet, könsroller, barndom/att lämna barndomen.

Men den fungerade inte för mig. Karaktärerna kändes ganska platta. Jag får känslan av att det var medvetet gjort av författaren för att kontrasten mellan flickorna och pojkarna skulle bli extremt tydlig. Det kändes som att boken handlade mer om de roller karaktärerna spelade i världen pga av sina kön snarare än om individer. Jag menar inte nödvändigtvis att det är något fel med det egentligen. Bara att det inte fungerade för mig.


Jag gillade inte heller slutet. Varken delen med det övergivna huset eller återföreningen i slutet. Det lämnade alldeles för många lösa trådar och frågetecken. Öppna slut är kluriga. Ibland fungerar de för mig, ibland inte.

[tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alltså jag vet inte vad jag tycker om den här boken. Gillade språket och beskrivningarna väldigt mycket men allt annat? Känns som det saknas något viktigt i boken men jag vet inte vad. Störde mig på Kims besatthet av Tony, han var ju bara märklig.

[Eli · Rating 5 out of 5]

En bländande roman, poetisk, klarsynt, vacker, hemsk. Recension på bloggen: http://elilaserochskriver.se/pojkarna...

[Neda Alaei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utrolig intens og annerledes ungdomsroman. Anbefales!

[Princess Consuela Bananahammock · Rating 4 out of 5]

detta måste ändå va det bästa schiefauer skrivit?

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bra ungdomsbok om att känna sig obekväm i sin kropp och hur samhälletsnormer påverkar 3 unga flickor. Lättläst

[Agnes Stenqvist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Det här är en så varsam och fin och spännande roman. Mkt symbolik och mkt tankar som väcks i en. Det är vackert och smärtsamt

[Olivia Bexell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aj så vacker!

[Al waleed Kerdie · Rating 3 out of 5]

الترجمد العربية للرواية غير موجودة بغلافها على الغودريدز وهي من نشر دار نينوى وبترجمد أثمار عباس.
الترجمة لطيفة إلى حد ما, وأوصلت فكرة الرواية تماما.
الرواية تدور حول الصداقة لثلاثة مراهقات, واحدة منهن تمر بعملية تحول جندرية فهي لا تقبل جسدها الأنثوي ترغب بأن تكون صبي, فماذا سيحدث؟

[Siina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, this took me by surprise and it didn't take any time to read -no, consume- this. Pojat is a weird book (that I can tell you) and full of mystical stuff and it lets us interpret it the way we want to. So, it's really not an easy book, but amazing none the less. Schiefauer is a really good writer in all the sadness and hollowness. She's very Swedish too and this can be seen in the story. The book leaves a nasty aftertaste that is perfect really - like you know you are reading a great book, even when it makes you uneasy and physically ill. That's a hard thing to do well.

I loved the idea of the flower changing the sex of the three girls. It sounds like a fairy tale, but in reality it's kind of brutal as it changes the girls forever. So, it's not really fun gender-bender stuff, but deep, dark and sad. It was great how all the girls were so different, even when being similar to one another. I even liked Tony, how he was scary and wild - and mostly confused (I like to write characters like him myself). In a way this book is not about testing the other sex, but I'd say is more about finding yourself - or not finding yourself and getting lost until someone else saves you. It's about growing up and not growing up, it's about the opposite ideas that exist at the same time and that's great. I like to think how it's running away from responsibility only to face it again and again. Who really wants to grow up? Not me. I think I'll be pondering about this book for long time and it's a good thing.

[Pixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

lite cisbinär kanske, tänker liksom att den här ~magin som ger huvudpersonen en "pojkkropp" ju faktiskt finns i form av transition? alltså det är liksom en väldigt cis idé den här boken bygger på, tänker jag. så varför ger jag den ändå så högt betyg? dels för att jag uppskattar skrivhantverket som författaren förmedlar berättelsen med, så ytlig är jag. men även för att jag tolkar huvudpersonen som ickebinär, vilket känns enormt för lilla mig med min stora genusmelankoli. jag har velat läsa den här boken länge just pga mitt långvariga intresse för att tänja på könsbinären, och det tycker jag att den ändå gör, även om den även lämnar en del övrigt att önska när det kommer till transmedvetenhet. en kan ju verkligen ifrågasätta hur soft det är att förmedla budskapet att en kan leka med kön som barn men måste sluta med det någon gång. ett annat skäl till mitt höga betyg är att jag uppskattar skildringen av män och pojkar som hot, då jag upplevde den som råare och ärligare än i många andra ungdomsböcker.

[Tuva · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I read this book for school and to be honest, my hopes were very low. However, it certainly was a lot better than I expected.

The plot itself is very interesting and it really makes you think about society’s norms. For example in this book the author really draws a line between how women and men are treated, but it also tells you that gender isn’t the only thing that changes the way people see you. Because mostly it’s about how you are perceived by others based on how you act and how you look. Because who even decides what is manly and what is girly? And who decides who you would love? Who decides what gender is? That’s right, it is society. Pojkarna questions these things in a very thought provoking way and leaves you confused and questioning (in a good way imo).

This definitely isn’t the best book I have read and I felt that a lot of scenes could have been executed differently. However I also feel like those weird moments in the book were somehow important to make the book that symbolic, poetic and confusing as it is and made it one of a kind.

[Madeleine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will give this a two-star rating, although it pains me slightly. I did not like this book at all.
That was, until I reached the second-to-last page. Everything before that, I hated. I did not like the style of writing, the way the chapters were structured, nor the themes and motifs of the book. All the way though, I had this nagging feeling that the author was somehow making fun of the transexual community, or non-binary people.

However, on the second-to-last page, I realised that she was not doing this. Actually, she was breaking the boundaries of what it means to be a girl, and I can respect that. What I cannot respect is the rest of the book, because it contained too many faults.

[Hildegunn Hodne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. With just the right amount of magic and transformation. I just wish it was longer! At times it had me wondering if boys are really that cruel towards girls, and if the story portrays what most girls go through, or just a few. Perhaps the story is a bit too one-sided, as it paints a rather grim picture of boys vs girls. But still, it contains an accurate enough description to allow you to relate, even if you were not bullied by boys as a kid. It is a fascinating and liberating tale. And should make for a good movie.

[Reetta Saine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mietin, miksi kaikki aloittivat arvostelunsa täällä: "Huh!". No, enpä mieti enää.

Tästä kirjasta haluaisin kuulla esseitä, tutkielmia ja ajattelua - niin monta eri näkökulmaa ruumiillisuuteen, seksuaalisuuteen, sukupuoleen, naiseuteen ja rakkauteen tämä antaa.

Lukekaa ehdottomasti. Kaikki. Huh.

[Marie the Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating 3,5 stars. Its a very special book with a unique story to it. At least the way its executed even though its a growing up story! But it was hard to grasp. But at the same time I get it. Conflicting feels.

[Liv Brandström Edlund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Har man läst en bok 3 gånger kanske det är dags att ge den 5 stjärnor

[ida · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

All I can say is 'meh'. I preferred the movie. Although Tony and boy!Kim would have been suuuuch a beautiful couple!! Why @ the unnecessary heterosexuality.

[enayah · Rating 1 out of 5]

no