A review by wardenred
Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

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.

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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