Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > One of the Boys

First off, I had this mislabeled in my spreadsheet, so this review is a week late. Whoops. Sorry. So many ARCs, so little focus.

One of the Boys.

One of them.

Let’s talk about self-fulfilling prophecies. Let’s talk about socioeconomic and sociocultural influences on parenting and child behavior. Let’s talk about biological and environmental influences on physiological and psychological development. Let’s talk about a piece of scientific misinformation that stems from chromosomal research done in the 1960s that led to a certain percentage of the male population of the western world being labeled as “super predators”.

In 1960’s Scotland, chromosomal research was being carried out on males that were developmentally disabled and being kept at a state hospital. It’s a long story, but the males who tested as having a chromosomal karotype of XYY and were mischaracterized as being overly aggressive and violent. This was a heavily cherry-picked study with absurdly skewed results, and all studies on the subject that followed over the next decade were fruits of that same poisonous tree. Needless to say, these studies were then used as excuses for eugenics debates, racist debates, abortion debates, and even tied to serial killers like Richard Speck (who was never tested for it) before the scientific stigma started to fade away in the 1980s. Sadly, Hollywood was still having a bit of fun with the trope into the 1990s. It’s not a trope that’s trotted out anymore; I assume it’s because the karotypes are tied to developmental disabilities and we’d like to think ourselves a bit above writing books characterizing people with developmental disabilities as some sort of super predator simply based on their chromosomes.

One of the Boys, however, doesn’t use the XYY debate as its premise. I only bring it up because that’s usually where plot ideas like these come from. Instead, this plot seems based in the more dystopian, speculative fiction, Gattaca-esque quadrant of fiction, where science seems to have figured out a way to weed out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to boys. And one would think, given how much we debate the violence of men these days, that a book like this might give female readers some relief; but we all know that’s not how it works. That’s not how reality works. Because as much as we women frown when people say, “not all men,” in our hearts we know not all men are bad. It’s simply that enough of them are. In this book, the men are bad not because of a gene, but because there are so many other factors that need to be taken into account besides a gene. After all, there were bad men before there was a gene to detect. There’s always been bad men. A detectable gene only gives some of them an excuse for their bad behavior.

That’s how Jayne Cowie writes this book, and she writes it brilliantly. Two sisters, so different in constitution, disposition, and behavior. Two sons, one for each of them, one tested for the gene and one not tested because the mother doesn’t think a test can replace parenting and she doesn’t want her child labeled by society before he even has a chance to make his way to adulthood. They both live very different lives: one filled with privilege and everything she and her son could want, and the other moving from place to place living from hand to mouth trying to keep her and her son safe.

The two boys conspire to bring one to the other, because he’s 18 and wants to be tested because he feels he might be arrested for being in an illegal fight and wants to know his status once and for all. This sets off a rapid-fire chain of events that unravels the secrets between the two sisters, the two boys, and three families in total.

It’s not a perfect book, because you can see some of it coming a mile away, but it’s a thought-provoking, propulsive, page-turning one. I couldn’t put it down. It will get your mind turning and thinking about all those boys out there who’ve been cast aside by society for looking a certain way or dressing a certain way. It’ll remind you that science isn’t perfect and sometimes it’s not the right answer. And it’ll remind you that even if you think you have the answers, parenthood always surprises you.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Crime Fiction/Domestic Thriller/Dystopian Fiction/Speculative Fiction/Suspense Thriller