Rainbow Boys (Rainbow Trilogy, #1) in Queereaders

Jun 16, 2013 Thomas rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, romance, young-adult, realistic-fiction

Rainbow Boys, a story about three gay teens, was published in 2001. In 2001, not a single state legally recognized gay marriage, and Don't Ask Don't Tell was still accounted as perfectly acceptable. Queer as Folk, my favorite television series about a group of gay friends in Pittsburgh, was just in the middle of its first season.

Allow me to remind everyone that every opinion, review, or comment contains bias: whether that bias be influenced by personal experience, inherent beliefs, or time. If I Rainbow Boys, a story about three gay teens, was published in 2001. In 2001, not a single state legally recognized gay marriage, and Don't Ask Don't Tell was still accounted as perfectly acceptable. Queer as Folk, my favorite television series about a group of gay friends in Pittsburgh, was just in the middle of its first season.

Allow me to remind everyone that every opinion, review, or comment contains bias: whether that bias be influenced by personal experience, inherent beliefs, or time. If I had been 16 (as opposed to six) in 2001, I probably would've appreciated this book based solely on its existence. On the second page one of our protagonists cannot imagine "that someone could be gay and laugh about it" - it's thanks to this book and myriad other works of art that that has changed.

However, now that it's 2013 and there are several splendid GLBT YA books available (Aristole and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, What They Always Tell Us, Suicide Notes, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, etc.) Rainbow Boys doesn't stand out when compared to the rest of the pack. The characters felt extraordinarily ordinary, which I don't mind, but they didn't pop out of the pages like other YA protagonists - gay or straight. The third person perspective may have distanced us even more from Jason, Kyle, and Nelson. Alex Sanchez's writing had only a surface level quality to it and I couldn't connect to any of the characters or the plot events beyond a mere "aw, I wish that didn't happen to X character" or "aw, Y character and Z character are pretty cute together." Some of the slang was outdated such as "putting the make" on someone and "crank calls." And one strange incident occurred: one of the main characters slept all night with his contacts in but felt perfectly fine the next morning. Trust me, you do not want to sleep with your contacts in. Your eyes will feel like they're on fire the next morning.

Overall, it is with great remorse that I give this book a shoddy summary of my opinions as opposed to a legitimate review. I really do love Alex Sanchez though and I think he's one of the best YA GLBT writers out there; his book Bait, published in 2009, shows that his writing has grown in depth and precision over the years. ...more

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