A strong debut! KL Kettle has created a YA gender dystopia that forces a young reader to pause and reflect at regular intervals on what it says about our own society. 

It has echoes of A Handmaid's Tale and Noughts and Crosses, and is written in the kind of punchy way that appeals to YA. I found the use of 'fogging' as opposed to 'fucking' quite jarring each time I encountered it - it broke the authenticity that was built up so well. YA is a market that thrives of realness and authenticity, and character voice needs to come through crystal clear.

The text structure is great, and KL manages to throw us into the midst of a heady plot right from the offset. Jude is a likeable main character, whose introspection about his circumstances allows the reader's lens to cast inward too. The kinds of beauty regimen the boys have to put themselves feels farcical, yet we quickly recognise that real-world girls find themselves pressured to conform to such standards. The leery behaviours of the powerful old women gave me Trump echoes throughout, again forcing a look at the nature of toxic masculinity, especially when manifested among the socially and politically powerful.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review.
An interesting subversion of the 'Handmaid's Tale' formula, a dystopia where men are the property of women. By reversing the "traditional" gender roles, we are given more to think about regarding the conversation around the structures of power and their abuses. Well written and thought provoking.

A quick and easy read that I found myself picking up after a long day to unwind. The characters are beautifully written and I came to love them within the first few pages and was rooting for them all the way to the end. At times I wanted to stop reading because I just wanted the experience to go on for longer. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Boy I Am is That was one riveting, hypnotic and unsettling read!

Set in a dystopian future, in which men have been entirely blamed for the wars and destruction of the past and women are in charge, sixteen-year-old Jude lives in the House of Boys, where he's taught to dance and entertain and please women. He's grieving the loss of his friend and is reluctantly groomed as an assassin. His assassination attempt, however, doesn't go to plan...

Entering Jude's world is dizzying at first, you're disoriented by the gender-flipped mindsets, and that's what makes the book unsettling, forcing the reader to realise how absurd the gender norms are in our own world. For example - when he's in danger, and a woman assumes it's her duty to protect him. Or when he's resisting a woman's advances and doesn't want to be thought of as That Sort of Boy.

I was riveted by Jude's story and the world KL Kettle creates, and it made me question the deep-set gender roles we have in society today.

‘My name is Jude Grant and I am alive.’

Put this YA on your TBR, buy it! It’s mind blowing, unique, gripping and beautifully written. Swapping gender roles, the world turned upside down. Underage boys being sold to female elite at an auction. Or a future in the mines. 

Sometimes I start reading a book, doubting if I would like it. Like this one. But from the moment I read one page of The Boy I Am, I knew it would be a five star read, easily. It gripped me from the first sentence when Jude introduced himself, the auction so realistic, Jude smiling so he would be sold and constantly talking in his mind to Vik, his best friend:
‘’Pull it together’, says the part of me that sounds like you, Vik. And it’s strong like you were. Brave like you were. It’s the voice of the boy I want to be. ‘You owe me’, it says. ‘You’re still alive’.’

This is a powerful story, not only because of the premise but also because of the writing, first and second person in one. Incredibly clever to do so. First person writing can feel close and personal but using first AND second person is almost oppressive, pulling the reader into the story and not letting go until the last page. 

Jude lost his friend Vik and he wants revenge. Therefore he needs to be sold to the Chancellor. He wants to murder her for what she did to Vik, just push her over the edge. The story thunders on from the first moment, the pace incredibly fast. From the auction to the Chancellor to a beauty pageant including flashbacks, describing Jude’s past and his friendship with Vik. The flashbacks are moving and my heart ached:
‘There’s that boy somewhere, the boy who danced, the one they told not to, the one they locked away until he stopped. And he’s been such a good boy.’

There’s so much I’d like to say about Jude and the people around him including Vik. I won’t though because I don’t want to spoil anything. But believe me, this story is thrilling and poignant and important. The way men and boys are being treated feels inhuman. But women have been treated like this for centuries, dominated by men, no right to education, sexually assaulted etc. And that’s precisely what K.L. Kettle wants us to experience. Evoking the disturbing feeling that this can’t be true. But it has been and still is. This book is about women versus men. But it could also be about Black versus white or any other example where inequality exists. Because we all should be equal, right? 

The only thing I’m not sure of is the cover, it’s a bit garish to my opinion but who cares when the content is so magnificent?

Imagine a world where women are safe from men. Imagine a world where women are in charge. Imagine a world where men no longer reduce women to something to flirt with or dismiss as beneath them. This is the way of life in K. L. Kettle's dystopian novel The Boy I Am. War has left the Earth in ruins, and it is no longer safe to go outside, yet humanity is surviving in tall, secure tower blocks overseen by the Chancellor. Men and boys are confined to the basement floors as a punishment for their behaviour during the war. To earn their right to live on the upper floors, they must learn to behave like a gentleman, and never look at a woman's skin without their permission.

The protagonist, Jude, is running out of time to earn the right to live amongst the women. If he does not gain a sponsor, he faces a future in the dangerous mines. Yet, Jude is not sure he wants to live with the women, who have demeaned him for his gender since his birth. He has seen another side to them and believes the Chancellor has killed his best friend. Jude wants to escape, risk the poisonous fog outside and search for a better life. To do this, the Chancellor must die.

The way women treat men and boys is uncomfortable to read. Female readers, in particular, may have experienced similar treatment at the hands of men. Feminists desire an equal world, but there is the risk of going too far the other way. Yet, as Jude discovers, it is not as black and white as Female versus Male. An underground gang of women known as Hysterics are also trying to escape. They want to save themselves and the boys from a society not run by women, but by the elite.

K. L. Kettle explains her intentions behind the novel in a letter to the reader at the end of the book. She quotes Lord Acton's (1834-1902) proverb "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and questions if everyone is equal, does everyone have the ability to abuse the power they have? What may have seemed a good idea for humanity after the war, has become an oppressive state where no one is safe from those in power, not even the women. The Chancellor controls everyone, but Jude and the Hysterics are determined to take that power away from her.

Telling the story from Jude's perspective highlights the faults in today's societies. Many are unaware of the belittling behaviour happening around them, but when the roles are reversed, they are obvious. The Boy I Am is both thrilling and eye-opening, challenging gender roles and power dynamics in general. Those who have read books such as Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman are guaranteed to enjoy K. L. Kettle's novel.

Imagine the foggy air around you stank of sour eggs and your trousers were “splashed with veins of muck and dust” as you ran for dear life away from the Tower in the desert that kept you, locked and groomed by a power-hungry elite of masked women. Welcome to Jude’s dystopian world, a teenage boy bred by “Insem” in the House of Life, who is, like all the other Boys at the Auction, desperate to free himself of “debt” and become a man; perhaps to prove that he can control himself, and that to look at a woman is not to lose one’s innocence…

This speculative YA thriller was so thought-provoking and fast-paced, I couldn’t put it down. It’s smart speculative fiction, just abstract enough to feed on your curiosity without the complete confusion and chaos that comes with an entire new set of world-rules. The woman are freaky, the virtues are corrupted, the past sins of the forefathers stink, and the world outside is practically dead. It’s an incredibly bleak vision, but it isn’t one cast too far from truth, and character behaviours are certainly recognisable and illuminating. In fact, the authors understanding of power dynamics is what makes the latent action so compelling and tense.

The narration is first-person, Jude, in the present tense. He himself uses the second person singular to refer to a missing friend, perhaps dead, who acts as a kind of alter ego during the narration, and a motivation for revenge against the ruling Chancellor deemed responsible. Kettle uses highly original wordplay and compound adjectives to help build her radical vision of this world, even building exclamations based off its own elements. The language tackles the dark atmosphere with a surprisingly refreshing touch of humour and oddity. Though some action sequences may still be a little unsettling for readers. I had visions a la MAD MAX, which is very cool, but certainly not one to be stomached by everyone.

I am not widely read in the YA genre. So if the rest is as good as this, then I’ve got happy stacks of reading to do!