Reviews with content warning for Outing - Stay Gold

Reviews tagging 'Outing'

Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

49 reviews

rayne_1906's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.0

Audiobook - 6 hours 12 minutes - I have a lot of issues with this book. I think there were bad messages and representation present in the book. On the surface, the plot is fine. It's very cliched, and predictable and convenient, but not bad. Just not particularly good. I found the characters very shallow and boring. I couldn't really tell you anything about the main characters. Pony doesn't really seem to have many personality traits other than 'trans' and 'obsessed with girl he just met'. While being trans can be a massive part of someone's life, it isn't the only part, and I think this just made the character feel two-dimensional and hard to connect with. He just never felt like a real person. Georgia felt a little 'not like other girls'. She wasn't a huge offender, not compared to some main characters in other books, but it still felt like she was 'special' for having a personality outside of cheerleading. She was also very shallow at times, and this didn't make her very likeable at all.
However, there are parts of this book that just really don't sit right with me. For one, the message being conveyed seems to be 'if you aren't openly trans, you are not a good person'. While the opposite is touched upon, the overarching theme is that the main character is a better person once he starts becoming an 'activist'. Activism is obviously important, but I think its wrong to assume a trans person must actively be 'helping' the community to have worth. Trans people should be allowed to exist just as they want to. Being openly trans is obviously what some people want, but the expectation that this applies to all trans people just isn't accurate.
Overall, this book, on surface-level, wasn't objectively bad, but I think it contained messages and themes that weren't particularly good.

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armontheroad's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-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

5.0

STAY GOLD is a book that has unjustly been reviewed negatively by readers who do not understand transness and the author’s message. I wish this was a case of cis readers being… well, cis, but trans* reviewers have also been reviewing this book poorly even if they have not finished reading it! This is highly reckless of reviewers. STAY GOLD is a book about a trans boy by a trans man. Our stories are already being spammed by transphobes who wish to silence us, so actively adding to that percentage when the book is not harmful or bad trans rep is irresponsible! A lot of the reviews state that both protagonists are unlikeable, which is far, but they are *meant* to be unlikeable at the start of the book so you can watch them deal with their internal biases and correct them by the end of the novel. STAY GOLD is about growth!!
Pony is meant to show young trans people that you do not have to internalize the transphobia society has towards you. His journey shows that you can be happy and love being trans, that you’re worthy of good things because of your transness, not despite it. It’s a story of self-acceptance and self-love. You may not like Pony’s internalized transphobia at the start of the book, but the facts are, a lot of young trans people are taught we have to hate ourselves to be trans. It’s something a lot of people have to actively work towards unlearning. Even if Pony didn’t have character development, which he does, we still have Max as another form of great trans rep. It was never Tobly McSmith’s intention to villainize the trans community. That is very apparent in his writing. Why would a trans man attack his own community?
Georgia has gotten a lot of backlash from readers, as well. Lots of people are saying she is blatantly transphobic and calling it ridiculous that she is the love interest. Georgia is never intentionally transphobic to Pony. She is an allo-cishet white girl in Texas. Her knowledge of trans people is very limited and very skewed. One of the reasons she is written is to inform cis readers that there is nothing wrong with them if they are attracted to trans people. McSmith uses Georgia to show that being with a trans person does not change your sexuality, that you can have fulfilling relationships with us, and that you need to actively unlearn your biases to be a good ally. She also goes through a lot of character development. Not once is Georgia malicious towards Pony because of his transness. She is a sweet teenage girl who doesn’t know how to navigate high school after years of pigeonholing herself into the person she thought she had to be to achieve happiness. She says some…. Cis things, but makes the effort to learn, change, and grow from that behavior. Acting as if Tobly McSmith wrote a trans character falling in love with a transphobe is not only harmful misinformation, it also disregards all of the work that McSmith put into creating these multifaceted characters.
Let’s get something clear; just because you do not like a trans character does not make the book bad trans representation. We are allowed to tell our stories however we would like. We are allowed to be messy, just like cis people. If you only like our stories when we are palatable enough for you, then you are a bad ally at best and transphobic at worst.
Besides the character growth within this novel, I also adore a load of other things. This was a fun, quick read with lots of casual queer representation throughout the novel! I would love a novel all about Max because he is the GOAT. This book is going to change so many lives of young trans readers and that makes me unbelievably happy!! Although I hold this book highly in my heart, I still have my qualms about it. For instance: the fact we learn Pony’s deadname, the fact Pony has to be LITERALLY hate-crimed to be listened to, the outing of a sapphic couple, the Harry Potter references, and the way a few of the characters of color were written made me uncomfortable. I’m not a Black reviewer, so please see how Black reviewers feel about that rep in this book. I am, however, a Latinx reviewer, so I will speak about the fact the only Latinx character (to my knowledge) was mentioned to have a scholarship solely due to her being Latinx and that rubbed me the wrong way. Overall, I can overlook some of these things because I know it makes it more appealing to cis people, and, unfortunately, cis people are in charge of the publishing industry. I don’t blame McSmith for the writing of characters of color. Even the most well-intended white people still cannot perfect writing characters of color and that is okay. I don’t think any of the representation was harmful, and honestly, that is all that matters!
To make a long review short, STAY GOLD is 100% worth your time!! Please stop listening to non-trans men about stories about/by/for trans men.

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seawarrior's review

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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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caitlindee's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-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? No

5.0

TW: transphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, deadnaming, misgendering (purposeful), hate crime/graphic physical assault, suicidal thoughts (graphic), bullying, slurs, self-harm, public outing/forced outing, pressure to come out from a close friend.

Okay, please please PLEASE be mindful of these trigger warnings before going into the book. I didn't look into them before starting (this is my own fault 100%) and I was incredibly caught off guard by what happens in about the last third of the book. This is not changing my rating of the book in any way, just please be mindful and take care of yourselves. I couldn't stop reading this book; it was emotional, funny, relatable, heartbreaking, hopeful, devastating, and inspiring. I thought the pressure Pony was receiving to come out by a close friend was unfair, but it definitely feels realistic to how some people are pressured to come out before they're ready, especially when those people are in a dangerous situation that others don't believe is a dangerous situation (if that makes sense?). I appreciated the author having this character change their tune at the end of the book and the conversation they had with Pony. Should it have taken a severe physical assault for this conversation to happen? No, but unfortunately, that's how things play out a lot of the time. Overall, this was a really great read and I am definitely going to be reading Tobly McSmith's next book!

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grace05's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

I hated how the transphobic love interest was forgiven because she decided it didn’t matter if she dated a trans man *also all the bad pop references

Content Warnings

bookrmysoulmate's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings