"The White & Gold People" was not my cup of tea. The idea stemming from the dress discourse online was interesting, unfortunately I found the plot fell a bit flat and the characters didn't really grab me.

I never really thought that someone could take a viral idea from social media and make it into a story. Mr Starchild is a genius in that regard.

A huge debate breaks the internet over a dress colour. Is that white and gold or blue and black? The protagonist sees the colours white and gold and the next day she can't see. There is a discovery that some people are going through some evolution or have some supernatural powers. And the rest of the story is a fight between the two factions.

Honestly, it's a nice idea. I was pretty young back then so I remember the debate but did not care much about whatever happened later on. I mean even an egg went viral on the internet at some point.

Anyway, I am still hung up on the genre a bit, is it sci-fi/supernatural/magic? Sudden explicit scenes can get boring at some point.

Mr Starchild gets an A for effort.

i love that someone took the white and gold vs blue and black dress things and made it into a book, it was a great concept and I really enjoyed reading this.

The White and Gold People by Segun Starchild, 301 pages.
Akasha Publishing, 2019. $10.
Language: R (102 swears, 45 “f”); Mature Content: R; Violence: R
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - NO
AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW
When the dress goes viral, the world divides into two kinds of people: black and blue versus white and gold. This divide is all fun and games, until the white and gold people start evolving into a higher race. A silly argument becomes war, and no one can see the end.
Starchild’s idea to take this real event with the dress and turn it into a fantasy novel was intriguing, but I am not impressed with the outcome. Several elements made the story hard to read. Structurally, the fluid point of view was hard to follow and Starchild seemed to struggle with how to get the characters into their next big scene, which gives readers unnecessary, filler details. Content-wise, I was annoyed by constantly having to skip scenes for the inappropriate sexual content. While there is a lead in for a sequel, I will not be subjecting myself to this story any longer. The mature content rating is for nudity, sexting, fondling of genitals, vaginal and oral sex, and threesomes. The violence rating is for battle scenes and persistent murder.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

Reading the description of this book totally made me laugh because I remember when the world freaked out over that dress!!!! And I saw it in gold and white so I was like ahhh lemme see what’s gonna happen! I think it was totally clever of the author to take such a phenomenon and then it into a novel that has such ramifications as the two different sides being completely divided in every sense ! Perhaps it could’ve used a bit more world building and details but I liked it for the most part :)

A picture of a dress went up on the internet and it caused a huge sensation. Some saw the dress as blue and black and some saw it as white and gold. Those who saw the dress as white and gold developed super powers and those who saw it as blue and black did not.

Soon the world becomes divided. This is the story about how people fear the unknown and tend to fight against it. It's a very interesting look into what governments and regular people do when faced with something like this.

When I saw the title of this book and read the blurb, I just had to read it and I'm very glad I did. Yes, I saw "The Dress", who didn't? It was all over the internet at the time. Segun Starchild took this internet phenomena and made a great story of it.

Also, I saw the dress as light blue and bronze.

This sounded interesting but just wasn’t my cup of tea. I couldn’t take it very seriously. It was just too eccentric for my taste. 2/5 stars

THE WHITE & GOLD PEOPLE by Segun Starchild is an urban fantasy. The story takes place in and around Los Angeles, California. Remember in 2015 when the color of a dress was a hot topic on the internet? This book takes that debate to a whole new level.

Laura Golding, a senior law student at UCLA is shopping with her boyfriend Dave when her friend Angie sends her a photo of a dress. The color comes up as a topic. Both Angie and Dave view it as blue and black but Laura sees the dress as white and gold. In fact, the dress causes a huge debate across the globe.

The next morning Laura wakes up and cannot see. She is experiencing hyper luminescence. Laura and Angie find a way to get Laura’s sight back and they communicate it via a video. The white and gold people start to develop super human abilities.

With this scenario, the book takes us on a fascinating journey. How does the population handle the differences in abilities? What are these abilities? What do corporations and governments decide to do? What do the white and gold people (Goldies) do? The story is a fascinating and disturbing journey through people’s insecurities around those that are different from them and how feeling inadequate makes people do rash and disturbing things.

While this is the first book I have read by Segun Starchild, I look forward to reading the next book in the series. Overall, I was immediately drawn into the story and highly entertained. There are also a few steamy scenes in the novel.

Many thanks to BooksGoSocial, Segun Starchild and Net Galley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

I was definitely intrigued by the plot of this book when I saw that it all started with real life event of the 'white & gold' 'blue & black' dress saga that split the nation last year. I liked that a fiction book took from such a niche real life event and made it into a sci-fi story.
The book was set in America however I found the writing very British with the words and phrases used. It was a great example of an original story, I do however think it needs an extra proof read.

Starchild writes a unique science fiction story that makes clever use of a quirky current event. I would love to share this story with other writers as an example of a unique idea.