Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Stay Gold

Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

8 reviews

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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dealingwithdragons's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative 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

4.0

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therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This is your typical boy meets girl out of his league but she's tired of the social roles she plays anyway type stories, but make one of them trans. The characters are fun and their exploration of themselves is typical but rewarding. I was a little surprised that one character never has a learning moment about how trans people don't owe you a sex reveal, though.

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cheye13's review against another edition

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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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seawarrior's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring sad tense 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

2.0

I really wasn't into this book... and at points I just wanted to quit reading. Pony and Georgia weren't interesting people to me, they both seemed shallow and self-absorbed, so I had a difficult time feeling invested in their motivations, much less their love story. Pony kinda skates along acting toxically masculine throughout the book and isn't given opportunity to truly grow out of that mindset or denounce it. I was honestly really appalled by how he was behaving and how remorseless he felt about it. I transitioned at the same age he did, at the same point in time that he did, and never felt pressured to act as he did, and have known plenty of other trans masculine people who would never dream of behaving so offensively just to pass. It's not a requirement, even around hyper-masculine guys, to go around being misogynistic and LGBTphobic just to be stealth, and I'm sick and tired of young trans boys being convinced otherwise. Pony slightly redeems himself at the end, but I really wasn't satisfied with his character progression, and I still left the story with a sour taste in my mouth.

Ironically I enjoyed listening to Georgia's voice more, though she also behaves LGBTphobically for immature and downright ridiculous reasons. Her act of redemption is more solid and purposeful by the end. My favorite character in the story was probably Ted London, and I was disappointed that he mostly seemed used as a plot device. I didn't feel satisfied with his development either.

My other main issue was how there was never really a balance that Pony and Max found between accepting that some people need to be stealth for their own physical and mental safety, and that they can still stick up for other LGBT+ people at the same time. By the end this story read almost like a cautionary tale regarding both their perspectives, but they never even opened a dialogue about it.

I think the high points of this story are the messages that life continues after being outed, life continues after assault, life continues when binding becomes too dangerous to repeat, life continues when you have to wait for gender affirming medical interventions, life continues after being rejected or mocked for your gender and it continues even when you wish you weren't living it. Trans youth have so much more strength and grit than they usually give themselves credit for. And they're often surrounded by so much more love than they know. I was happy that these ideas were reflected in the book, but mostly at the very end, and only very briefly in comparison with the previous pages. I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to others. It's not totally terrible, but I had a lot of issues with the characters and with the narrative that went unresolved.

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xoodlebooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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wardenred's review against another edition

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dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm standing in the middle of a tornado of feelings and thoughts that I've never had to deal with before this moment.

I have about twenty different emotions about this book, and they're all conflicting.

The cover, the blurb, and even the first chapter all suggest this is a lighthearted contemporary YA romance, something cute, hopeful, and optimistic. And yet, even though there are plenty of cute and lighthearted moments scattered throughout the book, it's anything but. It made me cry, seethe, want to hit someone, and I barely got through that one scene by the end, the one viscerally depicting a physical assault against the trans character. Yes, this is probably a spoiler, but I feel it's a spoiler you need to know going in, especially if you are a trans/nonbinary reader. I'm grateful that I knew about it going in. It still left me shaken.

Mostly, when I try to pull my thoughts about this book together, I come up with this conclusion: there are two wholly separate stories there, and it's not because of the dual POV.

Spoiler

One of them is the story of a trans boy, Pony, who just wants to be normal and so he goes stealth in his new high school. He just wants to be known as this sometimes cute, sometimes funny guy, not the trans guy first and foremost. He's not ready to be out, and everyone around him has an opinion about it. His father wants him to "go back to being a girl," his sister doesn't approve of the entire stealth thing even though she's generally supportive, his out and proud friend wants him to be out and proud too. He makes new friends, but to better fit in with those bros and avoid revealing his secret he sometimes has to die a little inside as they all make homophobic jokes. He meets a girl he likes, and she likes him back, but when he comes out to her, she pushes him away because she can't deal with him being trans, and what if people think she's a lesbian? (According to many characters in this book, being a lesbian is just about the worst thing that can happen to someone. Lesbians! Oh the terror! /s)

Eventually, he reaches a very low point after being physically assaulted by homophobic jerks, and then... um... we never know what then. Because then suddenly, in a pretty rushed ending, everything around him is sunshine and rainbows. His father changes his mind. His now-girlfriend has seen the light and become a passionate ally. His out and proud friend apologizes for pressuring Pony into coming out and praises him for doing it in the same breath. His new bros have suspected he's trans all along and still got his back (and they're sorry for the dumb jokes, they won't do that again). His now-girlfriend's friends who were so against her having anything to do with Pony are not a-ok with it. His assaulters are in jail. The only people who don't cheer on him and support him are some nameless homophobes having an anti-LGBTQ protest on the sidewalk. By getting assaulted Pony has apparently earned his happy ending when it comes to external factors. As for what's going on with him internally, how he process that low point, how he rises up, how he now views these people around him... we'll never really know, I guess. It feels like there's an entire Act III here, left untold.

But there's also another story here, a story for and about allies. Here, the protagonist is Georgia, a girl in a tight spot of her own: her boyfriend cheated on her and dumped, her mom left her dad for some rich guy, Georgia desperately wants to be liked by everyone, she keeps telling ridiculous far-fetched stories to hide the truth about herself, and she keeps turning away from her dreams of writing and journalism in favor of the more socially uplifting cheerleading. She meets a guy, falls for the guy, learns the guy is trans, and it scares and confuses her. Georgia gradually works through the issues she has with this and stumbles upon an entire knot of issues she has with herself. She eventually realizes the importance of living one's truth and supporting others in living their own; she learns that she can make a difference, more than just for herself; that she can change others' lives for the better. She learns to be brave. Her positive impact on Pony's life in particular may seem somewhat exaggerated, but for the purpose of the story she's the center of, this kind of works, with a bit of good old-fashioned suspension of disbelief. Here, we have a complete journey, a beginning, a middle, and a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Nothing feels left out.

This second story is the reason for the high rating I gave this book. I believe allies need stories like this, and we definitely need allies. I believe this can be a very important book for many people.

But as for Pony's story, the trans story, the story about the character I saw my younger self in as I read it... I have some problems with it. I loved Pony. Like I said, I saw a lot of myself in him. I lived through some of those moments he had to deal with. His story, for the most part, is very honest, very real, very well-written. And that's why it makes me so angry that the main part he plays in this book as a whole is that of Georgia's (and, potentially, the reader's) learning experience. Here's how you treat trans people and here's how you don't. Here are the terrible things will happen if you lean into the don't. Be kind, be supportive, remember that trans people around you are human and have feelings and their lives matter!

Which is all very, very true. And very, very important. But. I don't know. There's something dehumanizing about being designated to a learning experience.

I still believe it's a pretty good book for allies or potential allies. But as a nonbinary person, I feel like I need a warm blanket, a cup of cocoa, and probably to go read about some trans or nonbinary characters just being themselves and having adventures and getting happy ever afters just because they're worth it, and not because someone learned a valuable lesson from their pain.

Read for Queer Lit Readathon (prompt: #ownvoices)

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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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