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Sanchez, Alex - Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High
Thu, Jan. 8th, 2009 12:41 amI kept meaning to review these once I'd read Rainbow Road and finished the trilogy, but clearly that is not going to happen any time in the near future. Though who knows, maybe writing that down will miraculously prompt me to get it when I am back in the US!
Kyle and Nelson are best friends. Nelson has a crush on Kyle. Kyle has a crush on Jason. Jason still isn't sure about his sexuality, and Nelson and Kyle's openness about being gay scares him. Eventually, things work out, though not always the way the guys want them to.
First: gay POC! In which being Latino is very clear and yet not an Issue!
Sanchez is very good at doing real-life high school; his characters feel like people going through actual issues to me, and I like how sometimes they are stupid and sometimes they are not, because that's the way people (especially teenagers) are. The downside is that his prose tends to be very flat. Because of this, the characters are never quite as alive as they could be, despite how realisitically Sanchez portrays them.
Even though the books are definitely about Being Gay, I like that Sanchez tries to show many different aspects of it. Each of the guys is different and reacts differently; there's no one Single Gay Experience. And he writes a lot about the process of coming out, of getting your first boyfriend, of facing prejudice and homophobia, but it's interspersed with crises about telling your crush that you like him, or trying to break up with your girlfriend, or applying to college when you're not sure where your best friend will end up.
My minor nitpick is that Nelson, the most stereotypically gay of the three, ends up behaving in the riskiest ways at times, and I wish there weren't that accidental correlation between not acting in a traditionally masculine manner and self-harming behavior. That said, I know it's accidental correlation, and I really hope Nelson gets a meaty storyline in the third book.
These feel like very solid books, but they can be a little flat or too message-y at times. Usually, Sanchez doesn't lay anything on too thickly, but the reception may depend on different readers.
Kyle and Nelson are best friends. Nelson has a crush on Kyle. Kyle has a crush on Jason. Jason still isn't sure about his sexuality, and Nelson and Kyle's openness about being gay scares him. Eventually, things work out, though not always the way the guys want them to.
First: gay POC! In which being Latino is very clear and yet not an Issue!
Sanchez is very good at doing real-life high school; his characters feel like people going through actual issues to me, and I like how sometimes they are stupid and sometimes they are not, because that's the way people (especially teenagers) are. The downside is that his prose tends to be very flat. Because of this, the characters are never quite as alive as they could be, despite how realisitically Sanchez portrays them.
Even though the books are definitely about Being Gay, I like that Sanchez tries to show many different aspects of it. Each of the guys is different and reacts differently; there's no one Single Gay Experience. And he writes a lot about the process of coming out, of getting your first boyfriend, of facing prejudice and homophobia, but it's interspersed with crises about telling your crush that you like him, or trying to break up with your girlfriend, or applying to college when you're not sure where your best friend will end up.
My minor nitpick is that Nelson, the most stereotypically gay of the three, ends up behaving in the riskiest ways at times, and I wish there weren't that accidental correlation between not acting in a traditionally masculine manner and self-harming behavior. That said, I know it's accidental correlation, and I really hope Nelson gets a meaty storyline in the third book.
These feel like very solid books, but they can be a little flat or too message-y at times. Usually, Sanchez doesn't lay anything on too thickly, but the reception may depend on different readers.
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