Rainbow Boiz

Rainbow Boys
Rainbow Boys, a simplistic novel, follows three characters struggling with their homosexuality, high school life, and the complexity of relationships in a conflicted, homophobic world. Alex Sanchez, the author (who followed with sequels Rainbow High, Rainbow Road, and God Box), writes with unadorned, and sometimes mundane, prose as he jumps between the first person viewpoints of his three main characters; Jason (a star athlete, who has a beautiful girlfriend, and is struggling with his sexuality), Kyle (a competitive swimmer who has always known he is gay, but wrestles with the notion of coming out), and Nelson (an openly gay chain smoker, who is in love with his best friend Kyle). The premise of the story revolves around the issue of being gay in the one of most outspokenly homophobic, and even dangerous places for these characters: high school. All high school seniors, Sanchez attempts to fictionally portray the struggles and trials each of the boys contends with on a daily basis. The sole uniting factor between the three boys is a removed father figure, and the struggle with homosexuality in a hostile environment.
Sanchez’s characters are sporadically believable, ostensibly well developed, but not profound. This may be because of their typical high-schooler focus on superficial aspects of their lives, or because of their sheer lack of complexity. Sanchez’s descriptions are sufficient: his character’s habits, fears, and ambitions are illustrated abundantly. For example, the character Nelson, a chain smoker, continually smokes during times of stress or excitement in the novel, and Sanchez mentions this at every opportunity he gets, consistently adding in phrases like, “Nelson sat down and lit a cigarette…” (52). These character traits reveal personality, but the characters themselves lack complexity.
When Sanchez speaks about his own difficulties, struggles, and tribulations as a gay Latino immigrant living in Texas, he speaks with passion and compels his audience with a motivating story of success through hardship. In Rainbow Boys, his powerful message was lost in the shallow nature of his characters, and his attempt to fictionalize his personal story. Sanchez’s spoken message is a poignant one, and Rainbow Boys fails to convey a similar message: the acceptance and growth of self despite sexual orientation. Sanchez’s use of multiple, shallow, fictionalized characters hinders the significance of his ideas; if he were to tell his own story, his readers would find a profound, impressive story, made more effective by its truth. Instead, readers encounter three conflicted characters in a love triangle, who are possibly the three most introverted yet superficial high schoolers I have ever read about.
The plot of the story is enough to keep reading, but not much more. Most of the scenes are predictable, and can become tedious. The first few chapters of the book were interesting, because I had never read anything like it. As I continued on it seemed as though a middle school student was streaming their consciousness onto the page, without reflecting on his own selfish attitudes. The quality of the writing made me lose some interest; it seemed as though the writing reflected this middle-schooler stream of consciousness. Sentences like, “Maybe he was in love with Kyle. Would that be such a bad thing? The idea made him want to go for a long, exhausting run. But that was crazy. He’d just taken a shower.” (228) Because the language is so rudimentary and the sentence structure is repetitive, I found it hard to become immersed in the novel, simply for its apparent lack of thought and profundity. “He turned on the stereo to drown out their voices and lay down on the bed, listening to the music and stroking Rex. He thought about the fight with Debra. She’d probably tell everyone about him. He should’ve kept his mouth shut, he told himself. Life sucked.” (125) When Sanchez incorporates paragraphs like these, the novel is hard to take seriously. Sentence structure is repetitive and follows a “he did this, he did that, she did this, he was sad” pattern. I honestly felt as though I was reading an intelligent middle or high schooler’s work. With this being said, there were some redeeming qualities to Rainbow Boys.
The feature of the novel that most intrigued and shocked me was the abuse the students encountered on a daily basis. The blatant and destructive homophobia astounded me, and you come to question the quality of human relationship and interaction in our society after reading of the unfounded hatred these people employ over the gays in their community. One must examine the ideals and environment that causes such hate, and cannot help but become angry at the slurs, physical and verbal attacks, and lack of protection a gay high schooler is victim to, especially in this novel.
Overall, Sanchez composes a semi-interesting novel. I would recommend Rainbow Boys to a middle school student, because it appears that is the audience Sanchez is writing for. His plot is captivating at some points, but on the whole, somewhat average. The message about acceptance is not powerfully displayed in the novel because of the character’s lack of complexity, and because of the repetitive pattern the plot follows. I feel that if Sanchez tells his own sincere story he would accomplish a lot more than he is now through these uninteresting selfish characters. Overall, I give Rainbow Boys a C-. A disappointing read for a novel that has gotten so much attention in our community, and which the readers seem to be so invigorated about.