Choir Boy (novel)

Choir Boy is a 2005 novel by Charlie Jane Anders.

Plot

Berry, a 12-year-old boy, wants nothing more than to remain a choirboy. Desperate to keep his voice from changing, Berry tries to injure himself, and then convinces a clinic to give him testosterone-inhibiting drugs that keep his voice from deepening but also cause him to grow breasts. Suddenly Berry's thrown into a world of unexpected gender issues that push him into a universe far more complex than anything he's ever known.

Reception

Choir Boy won the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Literature.
Tikkun described it as "engaging", noting its "believable, frustrating quality", and lauded Anders for "handl issues of gender with a light touch."
Kirkus Reviews called it "groundbreaking and unflinching", with Berry's story being "memorable", but overall faulted it for a "lack of a cohesive voice and too much figurative language", with "trocious metaphors, sloppy editing and too many pithy observations detract from the prose."