Reviews tagging 'Deadnaming'

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

102 reviews

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

grace_koalateareads's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative 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? Yes

3.5

“We can’t change those people’s minds. We just love louder and harder than they can hate.”

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith was a difficult  yet important read. The story is split into Pony’s (a trans boy) and Georgia’s (a cis girl) point of view. Both are seniors at a Texas high school just outside of Dallas. For Pony it’s all about going “stealth” and just being a normal guy, for Georgia it’s about cheerleading and being the person people expect her to be. I loved both of them so much, they had great personalities and felt real and genuine. I loved the puns, the banter and the deep and meaningful conversations. 

“When the school treats trans students like they’re different, it gives the green light for the other kids to do the same, but kids are way meaner.”

The side characters were where my discomfort started, especially with Max, Pony’s “out and proud” best friend, who came across very “black and white” and wanting him to share things on social media that made him feel uncomfortable. I know the ending sort of cleared those things up, but it felt too rushed and too shiny (or gold, if you will) like it wasn’t real.  Being “out and proud” is great, it’s awesome, but not if it isn’t safe to do so. It also made me uncomfortable with the amount of trans and queer slurs, especially as they didn’t need to be written down to get the point across.

“Some days, I barely think about being trans. And other days, it’s an obstacle course.”

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the book, just not as much as I was expecting. A lot of really heavy topics were covered, such as transphobia, misgendering and forced outting - these weren’t the reason for my lower rating, but more how they were handled/written especially when a character was the one causing said topics. I was definitely hooked and finished the book in just over a day. It’s one that I think a lot of people, who don’t understand what being trans means, should read, however, overall it just made me feel drained.

“I raise my glass in toast and say (but not too loudly, “Here’s to being trans in Texas.””

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Bullying, Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Drug use, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Alcohol

loiseigenraam's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative inspiring sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I really appreciate this book for the story it tells, but it being a YA story I'm just 'too old' to really appreciate the teenage drama that is going on in the book. Things like the prank war between the football team and the cheerleading squad or the 'jokes' Georgia made really had me rolling my eyes. 

 

Besides that, I did enjoy the book and the story. I found it very interesting, and heart wrenching, to see the world through a transgender boy's eyes. I really liked Pony as a character too. Lets just not talk about his name though... I also sobbed my eyes out ofc. I agree with all the reviews saying this book should come with trigger warnings. Please look those up if you have any triggers before you read this book. 

 

I definitely recommend this book for the transgender POV and learning more about that. And if you're a younger reader, you might also enjoy the whole story around that too. 

 

Something that annoyed me very much was Pony's friend Max. I understand him wanting Pony to be out and proud and wanting him to be an advocate. But as someone who’s gone through the same process and is also a receiver of transphobia and harassment, you’d think he’d have more of an understanding towards Pony’s hesitation to be out and would kindly nudge him in the right direction while respecting his choices and his personal timeline, instead of actually putting an ultimatum on their friendship.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Deadnaming

wrinnola's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Dysphoria

Minor: Drug use, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

ian_loves_dragons's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

2.5

The main cis-trans romance in this book could be described as “why I’m t4t,” except we’re supposed to root for them to be together 

-sincerely, a frustrated trans person 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Medical content, Lesbophobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Deadnaming, Death, and Suicide

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

luxxltyd's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, Outing, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Deadnaming, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Lesbophobia

whosfernn's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

I knew almost nothing about this book when I picked it up. Looking at the cover and the blurb, I assumed it would be a cute coming-of-age romance. What it actually is is probably the best, most moving tale of a trans boy I've ever read. It's a very realistic look at the trans experience, especially how it can be to be trans in southern America. Beautiful. One of my favourites, probably my favourite read of 2023 so far. Please read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Medical content, Lesbophobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Infidelity, Mental illness, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Religious bigotry

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

stailysh1's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing 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

4.0

I think this book is great for what it is.  It reads like it was the author's high school fantasy, but in the case of this book, I believe that's excusable because this book could really help a lot of people who need it.  It shows the mentality behind being both in and out of the closet and focuses on visibility.  The ending kind of pushes being out and visible, which I find challenging because that is not safe or desired by everyone who is part of the LGBT+ community, especially transgender individuals.  The main characters are generally lovable and funny, and work through their flaws and grow together.  All in all, it's an enjoyable and (mostly) light read that should be taken for what it is: a YA LGBT+ novel with a happy ending.  
**Please read the content warnings before diving into this book.**

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Hate crime, Homophobia, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Biphobia, Deadnaming, Infidelity, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Alcohol