Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - Golden Boys

“I feel the past clinging to me like condensation on a glass of water. He’s everywhere around me. He’s my relief, and my protection.”

Look at me!! Reading a book I know nothing about! This was impulse buying. I liked the title and decided to buy it. However, it was a nice surprise. This is a coming-of-age story about 4 friends that decide to follow different paths during the summer before their senior year of high school. It's a story about identity, growing up, and romance. The characters are well-written and well-developed. And the story itself is also well-structured. I also liked that the reader has access to other mediums, such as images of Reese's schedule.

However, I think that the pacing is slow in the beginning. And that affected my reading experience to the point that I thought about DNF'ing the book. After the friends went their separate ways, the story becomes more dynamic but, in the beginning, it was very slow for my liking.

Still, it is a solid reading.

Content Warnings

emmaward55's review against another edition

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lighthearted slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.5

This review is a bit of a sad one, because I'm feeling disappointment with this book.

It starts slow and the pacing felt off throughout. Having four point of view characters can be tricky at the best of times, but it was too many narrators in the allotted space. Stamper would have done better either by spending more time with each boy (and giving us a longer book) or cutting one of the POVs. This is a shame to say, because at first all the different stories sound so interesting, but we're never with any character long enough to get anything of substance from them. I know as much about these boys in chapter sixty as I did in chapter ten.

Heath suffered the worse from this, with what felt like barely any chapters to live out his child-of-divorce plot. I can list off five surface-level facts about his life and that's it. I didn't get why Reese had such a thing for him. Reese is also the other character who doesn't seem to undergo any significant transformation during his "character arc", if we can call it that. He decides he likes a slightly different field of art better than his current interest and that was... it? There was no sense of passion from him in his chapters, no inspiration or excitement in his telling of events. He was boring for an artist.

Sal and Gabe fare better overall, with the former confirming that he has no idea what his next step is, and the latter getting a shot of confidence for the first time. Sal's plot was the most interesting. I could have read an entire novel just about Sal's time interning for the Senator.

Honestly I'm losing interest in writing this review now. I don't think it was a bad book, but it had some pretty big structural flaws. The writing isn't detailed, but it's easy to read and fine if you're just looking for some lighthearted queer romance and friendship dynamics.

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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

3 ⭐ CW: bullying/homophobia mention, anxiety/panic attacks, Covid/pandemic mentions

Golden Boys by Phil Stamper is a contemporary novel about four gay best friends from a small Ohio town that are each about to go on separate summer adventures. This was a nice and light summery read, but I felt it didn't really have much substance.

We get POV chapters from Sal, the uptight buttoned up one with ambitions to get to work in politics; Gabriel, his best friend/hook up who suffers from panic attacks and wants to save the trees; Reese, the guy from a big family who gets to study design in Paris; and Heath, the poorest of the group dealing with his parent's divorce and being shipped off to Florida with his aunt and cousin. Heath is my favorite.

I loved seeing how their friendships work and balance each other out. It was also nice to see platonic intimacy depicted from teen boys. Each character is trying to find out who they are away from Ohio and away from their friends. Sal and Gabe strive to figure out how to be just friends in order to let each other grow, and Heath and Reese both have huge crushes on each other, but don't know it.

This was a sweet story, but I think it was a bit young for me or it could be the fact that I have a hard time being gripped by contemporary YA stories. It was fine, but it just didn't have that...*something*, you know?

If you're looking for a sweet, easy summer read about teen romance and then finding themselves, this is perfect for that.

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imstephtacular's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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