Rainbow Boys
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)
Navigating through the intolerant world of the early aughts and their own insecurities, three teenage boys find each other and the confidence to come out of the closet in this seminal queer coming-of-age novel.
Jason Carillo is a jock with a steady girlfriend. He’s on track to play ball, marry his high school sweetheart, and get as far away from his abusive dad as possible—but that’s if he can get into college with his shaky math grades…and if he can stop dreaming about having sex with guys.
Kyle Meeks is definitely gay, but he’s not planning on telling anyone, least of all his parents. All he wants is to keep his head down and get through high school without incident—until Jason asks him for help in math and all of a sudden, Kyle is spending long hours with a boy he’s always found cute and it’s getting harder and harder to keep his feelings under wraps.
Nelson Glassman is out and loud about it, but being proud of who you are doesn’t mean things don’t get lonely. He’s got a target on his back for the school bullies to kick, and while his mom supports him, she doesn’t entirely understand him. To make things worse, he and his best friend—and longtime crush—Kyle have been spending more and more time apart, and he doesn’t know how to deal.
Messy, honest, and raw, Rainbow Boys follows these three boys as they come of age and come out of the closet in the early aughts in one of the most revolutionary young adult novels in the last quarter century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sanchez's debut novel chronicles the senior year of three gay teens struggling with issues ranging from coming out to first love to an HIV scare. The story lines communicate a hint of an educational agenda (Sanchez sprinkles in the names of support groups like Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays into the novel, and lists contact information for organizations at the end), but the characters' complicated feelings are well drawn, and readers will find themselves interested in each of the protagonists' lives. Sanchez creates modern situations that speak to contemporary teens: Nelson and Kyle stand up to their principal for the right to form a gay-straight alliance at their school, and Nelson has unprotected sex with a stranger he meets online. The relationship between Kyle and closeted jock Jason also develops realistically, and the awkward triangle among the three males builds subtly and convincingly. Readers will learn and understand both boys' perspectives, from Jason's fear that he will be found out to Kyle's growing agitation at his mixed messages. Some of the writing is stilted ("You would've thought the prodigal son had come home," Sanchez writes when Kyle finally connects with his father), and some of the language and sexual situations may be too mature for some readers, but overall there's enough conflict, humor and tenderness to make this story believable and touching. Ages 12-up. .
