Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Act Cool by Tobly McSmith

5 reviews

imstephtacular's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.25

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housedominic's review

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad tense 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

3.0

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spottedcow's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing 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? Yes

3.75

This book was a very quick fun read :D i loved all the theater references and it was nicley written. There are some parts that were odd, but it was an extremely fun  read. (Dont get scared by the trigger warnings, it dosent go into to much detail and is mostly light harted)
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heartbookmark's review

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective 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

4.0

Despite all the LGBTQIA+ books that I have read and own, this is the first one I've read with a transgender protagonist. I live in a small, religious town, so I have to drive out of my way to find and purchase these kinds of books. 

Anyways, I actually really enjoyed this book. I would have given it a full five stars, but there were times where the pacing felt off (I'm not really used to reading books with so many small time-skips in them.) and, in my personal opinion, had some minor side plots that seemed entirely unnecessary. 

There was also the fact that there was a pansexual character that was portrayed as a cheater and that made me uncomfortable as a bisexual person myself whose best friend is pansexual. It was a trope that I've had to deal with personally in real life where people assumed that's what bisexual and pansexual people always do when in a relationship. I'm not saying that there aren't bi and pan people out there who actually do that, but this is how we are portrayed in any type of media the majority of the time.


The entire section about conversion therapy made me very emotional and I cried near the end. I have never personally be threatened to be sent to conversion therapy, but that's because I was lucky enough that my very religious grandparents weren't so cruel that they would send their only grandchild to be tortured and "fixed" just because of who she is. If they had been that cruel, conversion therapy would have been my reality. I get super uncomfortable and emotional when conversion therapy is brought up because of how horrible it is and how lucky I was to avoid something like that when others weren't so lucky in past and possibly present. It's a well-written section of the book that was meant to make people emotional while reading it and it was successful at doing so, for me at least.


That being said, this is a book that does need some recognition because there's not much transgender representation in YA novels as protagonists. Transgender characters are usually side characters or even characters that show up once and then are never seen again.

Also, I want to note that I loved that there was a content warning inside the book. There needs to be more of that. I am so used to seeing tags on fanfiction (which are essentially content warnings) and not seeing them in actual books that I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it. 

For anyone who wants to read this book, I recommend that you go ahead and do so. 
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thelovelylibrarylady's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

I am obsessed with this story. August moves in with his aunt and starts attending a well-respected acting school in NYC after his parents refuse to accept his gender identity. At his new home and school, August is able to be his true self, but there is a problem. The move to New York came with one condition from his parents: he must not present as or transition to male. Obviously, August agrees to this but has no intention of keeping his promise. This is fine until they decide to come up to see him in his school's fall musical. This story is messy, dramatic, and a little unrealistic, but my musical theater-loving self just adored this title. I cannot recommend this one enough to others who enjoy LGBTQ+ fiction and/or the magic of Broadway! Please check out the content warnings for this book before picking it up, as it does deal with some heavy topics.
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