Rainbow Boys

An awful lot of melodrama, and characters that fit archetypes. But maybe I'm looking at it through the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight. I have a hard time thinking this would be groundbreaking, but it might have been ahead of the curve of young adult gay fiction. I had certainly seen its cover as a babygay, around the time I came out. I guess that's why I bought it when a shopowner recommended it in a gay London bookshop a few years ago. (Like many other things, it's been sitting on my bookshelf since then looking at me forlornly.)

A nice read but I'm definitely too old for it.

Jason, Kyle, and Nelson, three teens experiencing the stresses of high school, family, and growing up, with the additional pressure of coming out of the closet. I really enjoyed this - it took me a little while to warm to Nelson, with his flippancy hiding his real feelings, but by the end, all three boys felt very real to me. The chemistry between all the boys was very well done, and the moments where emotion overrides sense were very easy to sympathise with. I will eagerly read the rest of the trilogy. I also appreaciated that this wasn't just a set of coming out stories, a 'problem book' the pressures the boys experience at school and home, the expectations for their future, all contribute to the story of friends helping each other show more through a challenging time in teen life.
I'd give this to people looking for a realistic story of high school life or GLBTQ romance. show less

This was one of those books that was on my to-read list years and years ago when I first discovered YA queer lit, but I never actually read it until I had to take a class on it. Go figure.

That being said, I think I would have liked this a lot more when I was younger. 2011-2012 was when the narrative of "miserable queer teenagers" was ending and being replaced by stories where queer teens just happened to be queer, and in the past couple years I've grown to like the latter narrative more. But I recognize that we wouldn't have gotten to these stories - where gay teens are allowed to be gay, and happy, and face little homophobia in their lives - without stories like Rainbow Boys. And sometimes in this world, where I can talk about being show more queer, wishing I had a girlfriend, and happily post fanart and posts about queer ships on an Instagram account with 1700 followers and get no homophobic comments; where so many churches in my city hang up rainbow flags at its doors and not only tolerate but welcome members of the LGBTQ community; where the Queer Centre at my university inhabits a space covered with rainbow flags on the outside - I forget about how hard it used to be for kids and teens. I was in the GSA at my high school, but I forget how difficult it used to be to set up these, to go to these.

So this book was a bit of a brutal kick, but I think one I needed to remember: how hard queer people before our generation fought for people who would come after them, and how hard some people are still fighting.

Sanchez presents three different boys, but all of them are unique, but somewhat stereotypical. There's the soft flamboyant gay guy (Nelson), and then there's the closeted jock (Jason). Kyle wasn't quite as stereotypical. I think my favorite of them was Nelson, though, because he does not know when to shut up and is sarcastic and I love that. I liked how Nelson's mom was such a good and accepting mom, you'd think it would be one of the other two's parents that were like that. But it was good, because in a lot of earlier queer books no one had even one accepting parent. I think I connected to Kyle the most - I'm low-key, but I'm not really out to anyone (except on the Internet and I suppose people who like read my stuff on the internet OOPS HAHA). It kind of sucked that there weren't too many accepting kids who weren't gay at their high school, which would have been nice.

I do think that Sanchez's writing style is a bit too telling, not showing, which made it kind of hard to read sometimes because telling doesn't immerse you as much, but it was pretty good altogether. show less

Carson High owns the trilogy - yay! As my son says, CHS is pretty enlightened. These boys wouldn't have as much difficulty there as they do at their school. Hopefully schools like CHS are becoming more common.

But we're not there yet. We need books like these, still. There are parents, still, like Jason's father and like the bigots at the community meeting. So, even though this isn't great literature, it's a valuable read.

And it is a very good story. The first half is a bit 'educational' but the story picks up and gets more interesting as it goes along. And of course the boys are adorable. Fast-paced, with short chapters and plenty of drama (but no melodrama and nothing too intense). And I loved that one of the boys is bisexual - we're show more a minority within a minority, and sometimes feel even more isolated, so it feels good to see us included. show less

This work speaks directly to gay and questioning youth in an authentic voice. Nelson, loud and in-your-face out, is continually harassed by other students while adults look the other way; he is full of insecurity at the same time he exudes confidence. Kyle, a nice quiet swimmer, is afraid to confront his parents and wants to keep it quiet; Jason, basketball jock, finds the closet still can’t protect him from his abusive father, and he is confused, afraid of the risk and in denial. Rainbow Boys tells the story of three different gay teens (“types?”) who have all the usual teen angst (too fat, ugly braces, poor grades), combined with all the gay teen issues (coming out, parents, bullies) and so much more ( first sex, safe sex, first show more love, getting used, getting rejected, falling in love, therapy/help groups). The characters are well thought out and are imperfect (until the end) and real. I saw bits of many gay men I have known in their story…the beatings, the political activism, the depression and self loathing, the problems with dad. It reads well and really pulls you in; you care what happens to these characters.
Overall I loved it, but at the end it seemed like Sanchez added in a couple of quick things, perhaps… suddenly it got little hokey, i.e. The GSA is approved “unanimously”; the sudden re appearance of Debra to tell Jason she accepts him and they can still be friends (this isn’t boy meets boy!); the seeming ease with which Kyle and Jason came out in high school at the end lacked the credibility that had been present in the entire book before this. Still, it does not detract much from the work. I really enjoyed reading this book and I think it is good for all youth to read; either to validate your own experience or to gain a better understanding of what it is like to be a gay teen in high school. 11/06 show less

A very melodramatic YA novel about three gay boys in high school. *Amazingly* angsty and over-emotional, but extremely fun to read. It's so nice to have silly, fluffy (well, except the angst, but all YA lit has angst) gay-themed YA books now. We've *made* it! :P

This book does a great job of telling 3 different stories that are melded into one. This book is great for any YA exploring their sexual identity. I love the way in which Sanchez gives the readers 3 different situations and degrees of "coming out" to consider. Puberty and Sexuality can be very frightening things for teenagers, but the experiences described in this book may be absolute terrifying. Sanchez describes them and the characters reaction with grace and integrity.