Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

9 reviews

bwithwings's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Homophobia and Sexual harassment

michaelion's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

My ex bought me this for our one month anniversary and I finally read it two years later hoping the book would be bad so I could give it away but it was so good! So cue so sweet. I shall be keeping it.

I was so sure that The Outsiders wasn't canon in this world and then she mentioned it! It's nitpicky but naming yourself after Ponyboy is much cooler than just naming yourself after an animal randomly. That boy got to senior year and didn't read The Outsiders?! It's so gay he would've loved it.

A great book for explaining what a trans person is to kids / teens. It has a perfect mixture of people familiar with the world and explaining to someone who knows nothing. Great writing. I laughed a plenty.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Physical abuse, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Deadnaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Infidelity and Abandonment

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

challenging fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Excrement, Vomit, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

use of f slur

maxmaxmax's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Medical trauma, Outing, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

journey2's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Sometimes I need to take my own advice. If you are not loving a book...it's okay to quit it. And you probably should. 
 But I wanted to see how it ended. 

~☆~ minor spoilers~☆~ 

Stay Gold was not a good read for me. I found this book frustrating. The characters annoyed me and everyone seemed extremely superficial. 

Pony is relentless about the "friend zone" thing with Georgia. She continues to say no to his advances and he continues to pursue. Yes, she likes him, but she has clearly said no and he will not give up and keeps asking for more; including love bombing her with a grand gesture, until he can eventually win her over. 

Our main love interest, Georgia, is so obsessed with her image and social standing right til nearly the end and her change of heart is supposed to be endearing, but by the time we got there I was just so tired of how fake she was. 

I know that in high school everybody's figuring out who they are and who they want to be, but absolutely every character was so fake and two dimensional. In the end, superficial apologies and excuses like "it's just locker room talk" etc seem to 'fix' every off-colour comment or remark. Pony's dad was absolutely horrible to him throughout the entire book and his mom was kind of just complacent and didn't fight for him. A couple sentences at the very end of the book are supposed to redeem him but they just felt forced. Even though lots of things ended up being happy or at least happier, I found this book extremely problematic, frustrating and annoying and I do not recommend it. 

I'm curious as to what the purpose of the storyline about Pony's job served. It didn't really go anywhere except to allow Pony to be nosy and intrusive into somebody else's business and then he got to have a warm fuzzy feeling afterwards. On that note, Pony continued to stick his nose into business that is not his own and it was very annoying. There was a time when Pony and Georgia stuck their noses into something so personal that I actually took time away from the book because I was  exasperated. He was rewarded for it eventually, but it was annoying to read. 

This book was 100% not for me and was just completely filled with red flags.
 I could go on, but I won't! 

Also it's list of trigger warnings is a mile long

 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Outing, and Sexual harassment

laura_keoski's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Outing, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Deadnaming

keyside's review against another edition

emotional reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Lesbophobia

cheye13's review

emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I actually quite liked this story a lot, right up until the last few chapters. I understand the purpose and the message, but it seemed out of step with the rest of the story to me. It surprised me just how much I loved both Georgia and Pony as characters, and I enjoyed seeing their relationship blossom.

There were two thorns in my side through the whole book, though: 1. The whole friendzone™ vibe. Pony rejecting friendship with Georgia bc she wouldn't date him is still bullshit. It could definitely have been written/handled worse, but I didn't like reading it. 2. The debate around Pony not being out. The current mainstream conversations around "coming out" and "passing" have taken complex concepts and boiled them down to black and white that just doesn't work. Having another trans teen borderline harrass Pony for not being out felt wrong. Likely something that happens and should be talked about, but didn't sit well while reading this story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Medical content, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Dysphoria

Minor: Bullying and Sexual harassment

eeriewater's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I entered into reading this book prepared for it to be a decent read but not anything special. Fair to say it exceeded my expectations. The dual POV made me connect with, and understand the characters reasonings, even when I disagreed with their decisions.
In my opinion stay gold had the perfect balance of angst, love and wholesomeness. 
The only thing I kind of disliked in this book is more about my personal preference and less about it actually being a bad thing. I did feel like this book, which is about a trans man, was mainly written for cishet people with little to none experience with LGBTQ+ people. At times the description of gender dysphoria, surgeries and other trans issues felt a bit too educational for my taste, but for someone who aren't educated on these topics before reading the book, this can be a positive thing.

LGBTQ+ rep: FtM main character, FtM side character (minor), other minor characters of varying sexualities and gender identities

I'm going to miss Pony a lot now that the book is over, and I truly wish there'd be a sequel where we could see him getting the money necessary for his top surgery and actually going through with it. I'd also love to see how Georgia slowly but surely becomes more comfortable being herself

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Homophobia, and Transphobia

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Sexual harassment, and Dysphoria

Minor: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, and Sexual harassment

One scene towards the end of the book where the ftm transgender mc is attacked in a bathroom, his attackers remove his binder, leaving him exposed