Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

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

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

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

use of f slur

journey2's review

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

elskabee's review against another edition

funny 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? It's complicated

3.5

 It's hard to say much about this book because it's painfully generic. Like almost every teen romcom trope feels like it's here except one of the main characters is trans. Buuuut being really stereotypical doesn't make it bad, just not a standout. I laughed at a decent amount of the jokes and the characters are complex and I was rooting for their relationship. 

I'd say please check for trigger warnings especially to do with transphobia and suicidal ideation. This book has a happy ending and for most of it a fairly light tone but it's not exactly cosy. It is about queer youth in Texas after all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Violence, Outing, and Hate crime

Moderate: Dysphoria, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Alcohol and Drug use

bookrmysoulmate's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

 

I feel so sorry for Pony. He did not deserve this. He’s a sweet, kind, and brave boy who’s fallen head over heels in love with the cheerleader. He just wants to be a normal boy and let his transition not become his defining feature/fact. 

I CANNOT TOLERATE GEORGIA!! I understand the 'girls shouldn't put other girls down shit' but she is the exact kind of girl I can't tolerate! she pretends to be good, thoughtful, caring, and 'not transphobic' but her actions portray the complete opposite! 

She likes Pony and wants him in her life but cannot date him because 'she doesn't wanna ruin her IMAGE!'  

I thought Jake would be your standard jock but I guess he was one of the very few okay ones.  

It's not exactly rainbows and sunshine, rather the opposite of it. It has some very dark scenes, the plot and esp. the characters are very insensitive and can be gravely triggering for many. I won't recommend this to a person who's looking for a book to be seen in, but if you do pick this one up please go through the content warnings once.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Outing, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

xoodlebooks's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Drug use, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, and Sexism

Disordered eating patterns

ilbther's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Transphobia, and Violence