Sanchez, Alex - Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High

[oyceter]

I 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.

Comments

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Oh I loved Rainbow Boys! This is one of the very rare cases where I bought a book based on reading its cover- my need for reading material at the time and love for gay boys probably had a lot to do with it. But I really enjoyed it even if it wasn't the best book. I did really like how they seemed to be real people, making mistakes and sometimes getting things right.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I really do like the kids, even though the prose doesn't quite do it for me at times. I just like how their crises and lives feel very real, from worrying about sex to college apps to being annoyed at their mom and etc.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

Hah hah, awww, I have a special place in my heart for these books (I read them in high school as a little baby gay). It's really nice to see race treated as not an Issue in YA, especially since gay is the Issue in these.

I completely agree with your comment on the style, however--I find his gay YA a bit spoon-feedy, i.e.,

"My mom is at a PFLAG meeting tonight, want to come over?"
"PFLAG? What is that?"
"Oh, it stands for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. It's a support organization for families dealing with their children coming out to them. They have chapters all over the United States!"
"Really? How can I find out more?"
"You can look them up online at www.pflag.org. Come over and I'll show you the website!"

But other than that, the characters are really well-done.

For a lesbian perspective on the genre I recommend you check out Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole--it's about a Cuban-American teen in Miami, and it's a little less happy (she gets thrown out of her house for being a lesbian), but it's set in a heavily non-white area of Miami, so it has more characters of color than Sanchez's suburban setting, and many of them are supportive of her sexuality (unlike her mother). The first few chapters are a little rocky plot and style-wise, imo, but I liked it well enough after that.

[oyceter]

Hee! Yes, that's pretty close to his style. But I do still like the way he treats the characters as people and admire him for writing the books (and all the others of his, which I need to read).

Oooo, thanks for the additional rec! That sounds very promising.