A review by studio_rat04
Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith

2.25

So first of all this portrayed the idea of being out as trans as more important than safety because it fights against transphobia and helps spread awareness, as though every trans person is an activist, which only furthers transphobic narratives and ignores the fact that people are often in the closet or go stealth for safety reasons, not self-hating reasons. Like the main character gets hate crimed and is pressured by his friend to come out and post on his social media about trans suicide rates and is guilted into coming out to protect others because it's meant to show they don't care what people think. But the issue is that these things DO matter beyond just people being judgemental, again he literally get's hospitalized for being trans. I don't get it like this was so close to getting the message across well and yet kept missing depsite ACKNOWLEDGING the reason why it's flawed by depicting an on page hate crime. Also the dad suddenly being cool with Pony just because Georgia showed him a some Trevor Project stat on trans suicide rates and funding his top surgery was laughably unrealistic. In fact everyone randomly overcoming their homophobia was incredibly cartoonish.

By the way, this is an Outsiders retelling and my favorite part is that he tries to be stealth and not draw any attention to himself yet he chooses the name Pony and when people joke about that name he think's it's because they know he's trans when really it's because no cis guy is named Pony. Also I want everyone to know this book has a plot relevant lesbian furry. Was it bad from every thematic perspective, yes. Could a trans retelling of the Outsiders be good? Absolutely! Was this that good retelling of the outsiders, nope! But like it had some good moments and again the name took me out, it was also a fun read so ya.