Review: Golden Boys by Phil Stamper

Phil Stamper’s Golden Boys is a coming of age novel that is to the current young adult market what The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was to readers in the early 2000s. The book is narrated by four young gay men as they embark on an auspicious summer that offers them their first glance of independence and life outside of their small town, before they return to high school for one last year.

The summer certainly expands their horizons, and they are each changed in some way, but the book fell a little flat for me. The first third of the book introduces the characters and the interesting part of the book comes after this, exploring how the boys navigate life away from friends and family. This takes a little too long to reach. It is difficult at times to be able to tell the characters apart, and I would have welcomed some diversity of experience or outlook to necessitate including four different points of view. While an interesting technique, the use of group chat messages to break up the chapters disrupted the flow of the otherwise straightforward and capable writing. I was consistently confused by the age of the characters, who at times seemed like they should be in college, but at least should have been leaving school and going to college to warrant the summer feeling like it has such high stakes.

I hope that readers enjoy the book as an easy summer read, and perhaps relate to the boys’ experiences, but issues regarding pacing and character authenticity and originality unfortunately hamper the book in achieving its potential.

Laura King