A review by just_one_more_paige
Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

challenging dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

4.0

 
Thanks to the publisher, Harper Perennial, for sending me a copy of this to read/review a few months ago. All opinions are my own... And that disclaimer also explains how this under-the-radar publication came to my attention in the first place. 
 
Apparently the "off-beat queer voices super weird books" are becoming a thing I like? Because this was, in some ways (vibes, if not actually realistic possibility of the plot) reminiscent of The Z Word. And I found them both a *ton* of fun to read. Look at me growing as a reader! Haha. Anyways, the narrative voice and writing style of this novel was the perfect level of "over it" snarky dark humor with an aspect that felt exactly right for the child of the 80s that our MC, Lacey, was. I don't know exactly what it is that made it feel that right, all I can say is that it was. And it made me snort with laughter more than I had expected to, based on the blurb for this book (which focused on, quite accurately, Satanic Panic and murder and mass hysteria). The audiobook narrator for this really nailed the slightly panicked, very snarkily annoyed, tone throughout. 
 
This was a sort of fascinatingly and darkly humorous grotesque intertwining of coming of age and sexual interest/sexuality. Alongside the satirical commentary on the 80s and the mass hysteria of the satanic scare and and horrific child sexual abuse accusations (similar to the witch trial hysteria) thsi made for an intense reading experience, but the almost unrealisitc level of drama did allow for the reader to keep it enough at arms length that it wasn't that emotionally affecting. An interesting and unique combination. 
 
There was a lot here that focused on what seems like over the top reactions to things by the "general public," things that seem so removed from contemporary life topically, and yet the greater theme - a hysteria of fabricated fear whipped up by the media - remains insidiously common now. Also, like, the way the government can enforce legal consequences to mass hysteria like this, and then when proved wrong can just shrug and say sorry and not have to do any formal restitution for the lives ruined, is a terribly familiar infuriating song today as well. And the ending we get...it's so frustrating because of those social-structural realities, and yet, it's more authentic for that. I didn't like it objectively, but I liked that it felt right for the story.  
 
Lacey is a girl caught between family members and the media and the public during coming of age years under the most extreme of circumstances and then, when she finally takes her future into her own hands, she is too young and too distraught and makes choices that will follow ehr for the rest of her life. She is vilified and given no quarter from the very beginning, even (and especially) at the hands of those who are purporting to be fighting on her behalf, and with the story told from her POV, it's hard not to sympathize and cheer for her. She is complex and messy and her life is more drama than seem realistic (and yet, isn't real life sometimes stranger than fiction? so can one do anything other than believe in the possibility of this really happening?), and sure some of her choices are suspect, but she is such a compelling character because of all of that. So real. And deeply tragic. I love a nuanced unlikable character. 
 
This was a wild and unique story. A definite “can’t look away from the train wreck” situation. And despite what felt like a bit too much foreshadowing, I, for one, enjoyed the reading experience. Totally, jaw-droppingly, entertaining. 
 
 
“The line between pity and disgust was very thin.” 
 
“…when someone tells you who they are, they’re not asking your permission.” 
 
“But I was coming to grasp a truth reserved for only a certain, miserable subset of people: That murder is not the same as death. That human malice poisons the soil, and there would be no peace budding in the spring.” 
 
“No one person’s identity redux is more honest or sacred than another. Each is what it is: survival.” 
 
“Now I understand that […] marriage is, at the end of the day, a pact between two people who agree to see the absolute worst of each other and continue on at risk of mutually assured annihilation.” 
 
“If you want to be a good person, it’s not that complicated, what you have to do. Just decenter yourself and live for others.” 
 
“You don’t understand. America is a county of psychopaths. […] They are bloodthirsty. They don’t care about facts. They just want someone’s head on a pike and a trip to the mall afterwards.” (the dark satirical humor says it all) 
 
“The price of being art was your humanity.” 
 
“Rarely does the logic of love seem to apply to oneself.” 
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