I read this book to celebrate Freedome to Read Week. Protective parents and children's authors claim loudly that this book is not meant for their innocent children's malleable minds, and should not be promoted or endorsed by the coveted literary award it has already received. I don't claim to read a wide range of YA fiction, but this book encapsulates the perfect mix of dark reality and fanciful imagination that teens go through. To exclaim that this book has a negative impact on today's youth is to erase those young boys and girls in Canada who have committed suicide before their thirteenth birthday, due to the daily harassment and intolerance they've faced. The entire cast of characters in Jude's life are heinous and harmful, but not because they are having unprotected sex or getting high in school bathrooms. It's because they mock the gender-bending choices of their classmate, they put a young boy in hospital for expressing himself. Jude is constantly wavers between martyrdom and stardom; both experiences are often real, and often imagined. This is a powerful book for children, young adults, and parents to read. The sex and drugs won't shock the young adults this book is geared for, but it might make them see their classmates, cousins, brothers, teachers, and peers a little bit differently.