Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Golden Boys

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

bookreviewbyana's review

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adventurous emotional lighthearted reflective slow-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

4.0

Este livro é tão fofo!! Perfeito para adolescentes, um livrk de autodescoberta e conhecimento!! 😊

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parasolcrafter's review

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

2.75

this book is...fine. its not really anything special, but its not bad, either. that being said, i do have quite a bit to say about it.

first things first, the pacing SUCKS. i had quite a hard time figuring out how time was passing (frustrating, considering this book takes place over a 3-month period) and as such it made a lot of the development in relationships feel very rushed :/ at one point, one of the characters mentions him and his friends have only been a part for a week, but the next chapter - without a mention of time passing - a different character says he's been doing his job for weeks, which could only be a typo but for me it made me think a bunch of time has passed without it being mentioned. also, overall it really doesnt feel like 3 months pass during the book; a most, it feels like a month, maybe. like...just not much happens? all the chapters are fairly short and, spread between 4 characters, that doesnt leave a lot room for anything :/ only some of the character development feels deserved, and its more or less only for sal and reese. gabe feels like he only changes because the author says so; a lot of his development seems to happen behind the scenes, which just reads wrong since he changes the most. for the pacing, i wish the book had been structured differently. since there's 4 characters, i think it would have been cool to have each month broken into four chapters, each spanning a week with each character getting their own part. it would have flowed better and made us miss the characters more. really...the pacing makes it all fall flat.

next...i dont like how the relationships worked out, especially with gabe and sal. they ended up feeling like SUCH a hollow friendship because their 'relationship' didnt seem to matter to either of them? idk, they just had such a strange dynamic, with sal especially seeming like nothing matters to him. i also didnt like matt at ALL. hes just SUCH a non-characters; hes literally only there so gabe has someone to like, and it was so annoying they got together in the end. it just didnt make sense to me. and reese and heath...they were fine, but nothing special. overall the characters just fell flat to me. they had so much potential, but it didnt lead to anything, which really is a shame.

further on the characters, theyre all so bland and fairly similar, especially sal and reese. despite the book being told in first person from all the boys, none of them had a distinct voice or personality. their personalities were more or less told to us by the other characters, but it didnt translate very well to their chapters, and it feels like we only know them all on a very surface level. i also dont like the way reese & heath and sal & gabe mirrored each other beat for beat. the chapters where they switch POV's just read as very lazy and i found those 2 chapters annoying and tedious to read; it was essentially the same chapter twice.

i wish this book had just gone a little bit deeper with everything because it was interesting, but it could have been much, much better.

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stacy837's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

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hue's review against another edition

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

1.5

Honestly, the back of the book didn't say much at all. But after having read the book, I now see why.

To say the least, the characters were flat, superficial, and two-dimensional. They didn't feel real, and I didn't much care about their feelings, thoughts, and so forth. The story was divided into four POVs, one for each boy, and written in first person. This muddled the story significantly because they all sounded the exact same. They had the same thoughts, the same reactions, the same existence, essentially. Half the time I wasn't sure who I was following. They all seemed to have one of two reactions every given time; either they were blushing from the smallest of things, or they were crying. That or they were smiling.

Following four different summer vacations was messy and uninspiring. They were way too co-dependent on each other for no reason, sending 'I miss you' texts every given minute and then being sad when their friends, who all were busy with their own stuff, didn't reply immediately. It was irritating, and I don't know any sixteen-year-olds who'd act like this.

I also can't for the love of me understand why Matt would get "back" together with Gabe after he literally ditched him and slept with his ex the moment his ex (Sal) was back in the picture. He never apologized for this, at least not in a way that made his mistake clear (saying it's complicated is an ass excuse for cheating), and yeah maybe Matt and Gabe weren't together together yet, but it still would make me feel very unsure in the relationship if I knew he'd been fooling with his ex immediately after his arrival. It doesn't sit right with me.

Same as Reese getting angry and jealous that Heath, his friend not his boyfriend, kissed another guy. Heath definitely didn't need to apologize for that, and nothing gave Reese the "allowance" to say he's forgiving Heath. There was nothing to forgive.

So, all in all; superficial characters, uninteresting plot, hollow relationships, and a lot of unnecessary cringe. Can't say I'd recommend it.

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