A review by hntodd
Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

3.0

This book is pretty good. Did I read it all in one sitting? Yep. But did I have some problems with it? Yep. It was overall enjoyable, but not the best.

I feel like Georgia's character was not fully developed. She was horrible to Pony when he first came out to her. Yeah she wrote the amazing article and was there for him in the end, while it was nice, it didn't really make sense to me. It might just be because of switching between the two characters. We don't see her thought process as much as you would in a normal book, but to me it felt like she just immediately switched from one side to the other and doing so sort of validated how she acted to the readers. This might just be me as a queer person speaking who likes all genders, but I don't think how she acted was acceptable. The way that outing him even crossed her mind?!? She made his coming out about her. It kinda gave Love, Simon vibes if y'all know what I mean. My opinion is that no one owes anyone a coming out immediately. It's not lying; it's protecting yourself.
That is the second problem I have with this book. I do not agree with the idea that all queer and trans people need to speak out against all discriminatory actions, to be activists, to be visible, to be loud. Some of us just want to live as we are. There is no problem with that, and if you don't live as Max does that doesn't mean you aren't proud. I will make a disclaimer, though, and say that I am cisgender and can never fully understand what trans people go through. So, while I can say these things as a queer person, I acknowledge that I am not the same as Pony or Max.