Reviews

Rainbow Rainbow by Lydia Conklin

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kirbyjones19's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I saw another reviewer explain this short story collection as “A white author compiled queer trauma porn for a straight audience.” And they were exactly right. So many characters act in ways that are just completely unacceptable and cruel and so many of their actions made me tremendously uncomfortable. The overt sexualization of every single queer character was insane and I was waiting for a story that was just about the queer people as people rather than their sexuality/sexual exploits but that just didn’t happen. There were characters who were pedophiles, sex addicts who wanted to sleep with characters significantly younger than them, and all kinds of tremendously problematic people in this book. The overt sexualization of minors also made me super uncomfortable. All of the stories seemed to only focus on how shitty it is being queer, but that should not be an entire book. Where is the queer joy? Where is the gender euphoria? Where are the beautiful things about life? I don’t mind reading sad stories but this whole book is full of stereotypes and terrible people that it is not even worth discussing. Also, all the stories end ambiguously and that may be a stylistic choice, but it’s not for me. The only story that I felt was remotely tolerable and not full of heartless and terrible characters was “Sunny Talks” but then it was ruined in the end by a trans individual invalidating another trans person and being extremely cruel about it.

eeisenbe's review

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challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Complex, lovely funny short fiction about queer and trans characters with a focus on nonbinary identity

pages_and_papercrafts's review

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3.0

A collection of short stories featuring the LBGTQ+ . Not my most favorite collection that I’ve read but there were one or two that held my interest. A lot of unique perspectives in the stories though.