Reviews

Bon c pas ce livre la que j’ai lu, c’est le prochain de cette auteure mais il est pas encore sorti … je l’ai trouvé super et tres relatable, j’ai bcp aimé malgré qq dialogues un peu cringe … sympa

literarycrushes's review against another edition

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4.0

In Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey, Acceptance Across America, an LGBGT non-profit, ranks Big Burr, Kansas as the most homophobic town in America. AAA assembles a hodgepodge task force of queer people to live there for 2 years to fight homophobia at its source. The concept was one of the more original ones I’ve read in recent months, and I was drawn in for the entirety of the two, 2-hour, sittings it took to read the novel.
The book frequently switches perspectives, moving from a Christian mommy blogger type, to a bisexual high schooler plotting his escape, to a man struggling with his sexuality after twenty-five years of marriage. Alternating between narratives helped move the story along, but each segment felt too brief and didn’t leave enough time to form any real attachments to individual characters. For this same reason, characterization was often boiled down to a single moment in their lives which unfortunately reduced many of them to cliches. I think that with some development of subplots (or even just following through on the ones briefly mentioned), this novel would make an excellent miniseries.

rebekahmm's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

1.5

The concept of the story and the device of each chapter being a different character’s point of view was interesting. I’m from Kansas and live in Kansas City so some of the Kansas-specific references didn’t land quite right: a few mentions of Jayhawks and KU but none of K-State or their Wildcats which would have been much more likely in a small, homophobic Kansas town.
Some of the queer references and depictions seemed a bit shallow or forced which made the whole book feel a bit shallow and forced. Which may also be a result of telling a completely different story from 11 different people.
All in all this book felt like a waste of time to me.

anahoj's review

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emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

4.0

ktw484's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.25

allysonclark's review against another edition

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2.0

So I understand why some people liked this book, but it wasn't for me. I struggled to connect with many of the narrators, not only because their perspective seemed overly stereotypical, but because there is so little time spent on individual POVs. And I know that the whole point of the book was to confront small-town homophobia/transphobia, but reading it was too difficult for me to enjoy, especially because the overall book felt more unrealistic fairytale-y (for lack of better description) than I hoped for. I did find that switching from audiobook to ebook made the book considerably more readable for me, because hearing detailed acts of homophobia was... rougher than just reading them. Overall, not my cup of tea, which I frankly did guess early on from the definition of "heteroshaming" on the second page.

wall0w's review

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I didn't realise this story was basically an interconnected collection of short stories and I'm not invested in following a bunch of characters in this town

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