A review by heartbookmark
Act Cool by Tobly McSmith

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective 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

Despite all the LGBTQIA+ books that I have read and own, this is the first one I've read with a transgender protagonist. I live in a small, religious town, so I have to drive out of my way to find and purchase these kinds of books. 

Anyways, I actually really enjoyed this book. I would have given it a full five stars, but there were times where the pacing felt off (I'm not really used to reading books with so many small time-skips in them.) and, in my personal opinion, had some minor side plots that seemed entirely unnecessary. 

There was also the fact that there was a pansexual character that was portrayed as a cheater and that made me uncomfortable as a bisexual person myself whose best friend is pansexual. It was a trope that I've had to deal with personally in real life where people assumed that's what bisexual and pansexual people always do when in a relationship. I'm not saying that there aren't bi and pan people out there who actually do that, but this is how we are portrayed in any type of media the majority of the time.


The entire section about conversion therapy made me very emotional and I cried near the end. I have never personally be threatened to be sent to conversion therapy, but that's because I was lucky enough that my very religious grandparents weren't so cruel that they would send their only grandchild to be tortured and "fixed" just because of who she is. If they had been that cruel, conversion therapy would have been my reality. I get super uncomfortable and emotional when conversion therapy is brought up because of how horrible it is and how lucky I was to avoid something like that when others weren't so lucky in past and possibly present. It's a well-written section of the book that was meant to make people emotional while reading it and it was successful at doing so, for me at least.


That being said, this is a book that does need some recognition because there's not much transgender representation in YA novels as protagonists. Transgender characters are usually side characters or even characters that show up once and then are never seen again.

Also, I want to note that I loved that there was a content warning inside the book. There needs to be more of that. I am so used to seeing tags on fanfiction (which are essentially content warnings) and not seeing them in actual books that I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it. 

For anyone who wants to read this book, I recommend that you go ahead and do so. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings