Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Rainbow Black

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Perennial for the eARC! The book is set in New Hampshire during the 90s satanic panic, which is what had me intrigued especially as it’s marketed as a murder mystery/thriller. The MC/narrator’s parents are beloved in their community until hysteria of the Satanic panic cause accusations to be thrown against them.

The book had a very slow start and didn’t ever grab my interest.

Writing feels disjointed with more telling than showing. I didn’t feel any connection to the characters, they’re all morally grey and the disjointed writing makes them a bit disconnected from us as readers. You never really know what to believe because the narrator is a child for the first part, which I did enjoy the unreliable aspect.

So many slurs especially in terms of homophobic slurs and ableist slurs-I get that it was the time period but it felt overwhelmingly icky and unnecessary at times.

More lit fic coming of age than the thriller/mystery/horror like it’s listed as on goodreads and what I was hoping for 😭 I sooo badly wanted to love this!! If it was marked correctly as being lit fic and didn’t say it’s a murder mystery in the synopsis, then maybe I would’ve gone in with different expectations but I’m not in the mood for lit fic coming of age right now, I wanted horror/thriller vibes.

If you also want a satanic panic horror or thriller book, check out dark places by Gillian Flynn instead (also saw my best friends exorcism recommended but haven’t read it yet).

TW/CW: ableism, homophobia, slurs, bullying, child sexual assault

Content Warnings

hannabee's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

lilythebibliophile's review

Go to review page

sad slow-paced

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

2.0

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I am a huge fan of Maggie Thrash’s previous works. I understood going into Rainbow Black that it would be a departure from her YA titles, as this is her adult debut and it tackles darker themes. I knew that I would either absolutely love or strongly dislike this book, and I prepared myself to have low expectations.

And then the first 25% of this book had to go and remind me why I love her books in the first place. It was tragic and funny all at the same time, with quirky characters who had believable relationships with each other. I enjoyed reading about Lacey and her sister dealing with the fallout of their parents’ court case. It was upsetting, but their relationship and humor lent a sort of hopeful levity to the story that kept the novel from being unbearable to read.

And that hope mixed with tragedy is a major reason why I love Maggie Thrash’s YA books and graphic memoirs. Her books aren’t happy, but she has mastered the careful balance of providing readers with a drop of hope among the sadness in her novels that is inspiring. It’s barely anything, certainly not enough to outweigh the suffering, but it’s enough for readers to feel slightly okay. It’s realistic, because in the real world there’s always something to poke fun at or push us to keep going when we are dealing with tough times. Plus, the irreverent humor innate to her YA writing is genuinely some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever read. I went through a lot between the ages of 13 and 14, and the Strange Truth duology as well as Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir and Lost Soul, Be at Peace helped me to find a light in the darkness.

In Rainbow Black, however, Thrash’s former trademark “suffering can coexist with hope” writing style is replaced with “life’s a bitch and then you die” nihilism. I’m disappointed that this incredible shift in her writing is already getting Rainbow Black more 5 star ratings than her other books have. I understand that life can devastate a human being, but I still don’t think it’s realistic to write a character study where the suffering never ends and there is no reprieve from it. Even during the darkest periods of my life, there has always been a glimmer of hope, even if it was only there for a second. Rainbow Black takes away that glimmer, that aspect of Thrash’s writing that made it realistic and made me feel attached to her work and her characters.

The plot of this book (without spoilers) can be summarized in this cycle: hope is given to Lacey and then taken away, over and over again, to the point where the plot is entirely predictable. The book ends on a slightly different note, but it doesn’t make up for the rest of the plot. During the flash forward to the 2006 timeline, the hope and “good times” Lacey had between the 90s and the 2000s are summarized and the reader is placed directly into another cycle of Lacey having problems. Her transition from being friends with Gwen to being in a relationship with Gwen is also summarized after the time jump, leading me to feel nothing for the romantic aspect of Lacey’s life because I only got to see the relationship problems Lacey and Gwen were having, not any great moments they shared.

In Thrash’s YA title Strange Truth, the relationship development between the two main characters was organic and well-built. Since I know Thrash can build character relationships well, I’m disappointed that she didn’t do the same with Lacey and Gwen here.

I can appreciate dark literary fiction books that detail extreme trauma happening to the main character repeatedly. I appreciate them when the main character is written in an empathetic, unflinching way that allows readers to see inside their mind and understand them. Lacey in Rainbow Black reads like a character whose trauma response was used as an excuse to not delve deeper into her psyche. Her character motivations are told, not shown.

Lacey is intentionally written to be immature. I understand this choice, but her immaturity is unabating in a way that makes it difficult to connect with her.

Rainbow Black is incredibly dull. I don’t mind a slow-moving plot if the characters and their relationships are compelling, but the book largely focuses on Lacey and Gwen’s relationship, and their romantic relationship development is summarized.

If you’re looking for a book that is “part murder mystery, part gay international fugitive love story,” look elsewhere. Yes, this book technically has these elements, but the blurb implies that this book is pulse-pounding and full of twists and turns. Instead, Rainbow Black is simply a 416-page chronicle of the same depressing cycle repeating over and over until the end, which doesn’t make up for it in my opinion. I don’t even care that the blurb is misleading, because if this book had been like Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir or Lost Soul, Be at Peace I still would’ve liked it.

In conclusion, I would argue that most people in the world suffer enough to not want to read about it if it isn’t a balanced depiction. I would also argue that a lot of the people who enjoyed this book are mesmerized by the novelty of the brand of suffering present in this book, and therefore rated it highly.

Maggie Thrash’s previous books made me feel seen and hopeful in a way I can’t even quantify. I’m sure they made others feel seen as well. If I read Rainbow Black instead of her other books, I would have felt even more grim about my own life.

I did appreciate some of Thrash’s wit, which will always be present in her writing. And the end scene with the bee farm finally felt compelling, since it focused on Lacey’s other relationships outside of Gwen.

Overall, though, if I knew that this book would be written in an unbalanced, hopeless manner, I wouldn’t have picked it up.

Content Warnings

More...