Review: Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez
Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez
Anvilicious.
If, unlike me, you don’t allow large portions of your life to be sucked away by the website TVtropes, you might not be familiar with this term. It refers to an aspect of a story so obvious that the writer might as well have hit you over the head with it. As the trope page says:
A portmanteau of anvil and delicious, malicious or vicious, depending on the usage, anvilicious describes a writer’s and/or director’s use of an artistic element, be it line of dialogue, visual motif, or plot point, to so obviously or unsubtly convey a particular message that they may as well etch it onto an anvil and drop it on your head. Frequently, the element becomes anvilicious through unnecessary repetition, but true masters can achieve anviliciousness with a single stroke.Heavy-handed for the new millennium. Extreme polar opposite of subtle.
Stories that are anvilicious aren’t necessarily bad—for example, I’d say that every single episode of Degrassi Junior High was completely anvilicious, and yet there was some genuine charm in the soap operatic, but complex, plotting. Anvilicious stories are also not necessarily wrong–often the writer has a point, and a very good one! But the problem with a lack of artfulness in conveying a worthy message is that you risk alienating your audience completely, reducing them to eye-rolls and sighs. There’s something fundamentally embarrassing about being lectured.
Sadly, though it was, in many ways, a story with merit, Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez was utterly anvilicious.
It’s the story of two pairs of male-female best buds—bisexual Sergio and his lesbian friend Kimiko; out-and-proud Lance and his questioning galpal Allie—as they navigate their identities and relationships in suburbia. Between mall dates, Lance grapples with his belief that bisexuality is totally a cop-out even as he’s falling for Lance. Meanwhile, Allie forges a friendship with and wrestles with her blossoming feelings for Kimiko. And all of these characters must deal with the repercussions of being out—or not—to their families.
I’ll come right out and say that I think that Sanchez’s message is a worthy one. Lance’s biphobia was the sort I heard a lot of in high school—”Bi’s a lie!” and all of that. Hell, it’s not like I can even pretend that things “Get Better” for bi kids when we grow up and leave the burbs. Allie’s story—of a hazy awareness of a more complex truth beyond just liking boys—was especially accurate, right down to the creepy, salacious response of her boyfriend when he finds out she’s been dreaming of girls.
But Sanchez does nobody a favor by presenting the issue so anviliciously. He lays it on thick beginning in the first chapter, as Lance hems and haws about how bisexuals are just kidding themselves. And he doesn’t let up for the duration of the book. The last paragraph ends with the image of a rainbow kite soaring through the air above one of our kissing couples. I wish I were kidding. Oh, how I wish I were kidding.
So as much as I strongly empathized with the message he was trying to communicate, I just think he missed the mark here. And hit a big ol’ anvil instead. I’m a grown woman, and reading this book was just a little embarrassing, even for me. I felt like I did in elementary school when they made us watch movies sponsored by Tampax. I can’t imagine that teenagers—the sighing, sarcastic purveyors of cool—would be any more amenable to a book told with such heavy-handedness.
And that’s too bad, because it’s not only Sanchez’s point that has some merit. I’ll admit that I wasn’t overtly fond of his writing style—he used a roving POV that jumped from place to place even within the same conversation—but his characters were ridiculously well-drawn and accurate. Initially I was afraid that he was engaging in some cultural stereotyping, particularly with Kimiko, but by the book’s mid-point she proved to be both very complex and very real, right down to her adorkably adolescent poetry. All of the characters had palpable chemistry in their romantic and platonic relationships. I’d easily call them “charming,” in addition to feeling like real kids I went to high school with. They were the reason I gritted my teeth and kept reading, through all the glurge. I even misted up a little when one character came out of the closet to her family.
But I’m afraid that this book’s charm, and the merit of its message, might miss its primary audience, who really do need it. Even if, perhaps, they don’t need to hear them in a book that’s filled with hand-wringing and interior monologues about why it’s not cool to hate on bisexuals. It’s not that Sanchez is wrong–not at all! But I think teens might be too busy rolling their eyes (and for good reason) to really hear it.
A review copy of this book was generously provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
8 comments
This sounds very similar to my reaction to Sanchez's 'The God Box' – good message, very useful as a tool for anyone who needs to combat homophobic arguments, good characters and interesting situations (plus an ending that felt, sadly so realistically awful) but a really heavy touch with the message.
I wonder how much of his inability to just let his book speak for itself stems from the fact that when he started writing these ideas seemed anything but obvious to many and there was a need for books to be like 'DO YOU GET IT YET?'. BUt I haven't read his earlier books like Rainbow Boys so I don't know enough to compare the styles.
This was my first Sanchez read so I didn’t really know what to expect–but I had looked up the God Box before and had similar suspicions. Of course, these messages about bisexuality might not be seen as self-evident to some readers, so maybe he feels it’s still necessary to lay it on thick? One of the things that’s problematic about that, though, is that you’re likely either alienating someone or preaching to the choir.
Why not just say "heavy-handed"?
Because "anvilicious" just rolls off the tongue. And also kept ringing through my brain as I read this. And because I friggin love a good neologism.
Neologisms ARE bubbly.
thanks for the review, phoebe! i was pretty hesitant about it–i wanted to read a well-written book about homosexuals for researching for my novel, which is why i read sing you home by jodi picoult. i thought about giving this one a try too, but the first few pages really did NOT grab me…and i'm sort of glad now that i didn't read on. im not a big fan of novels with messages really heavily laid on them. subtlety, to me, is veerry important.
Hey Aleeza–what's your book about? I might be able to give you some suggestions!
I've loved all of his books… but this is my least favorite of his so far. Firstly, there is always one main protagonist you can relate to, a voice of reason, but all four leads feel stuck in little boxes/charicatures to represent stereotypes. I feel like the writing quality has also gone down, and took severe blows where he tried to write for the age; uh, teenagers, gay or not, do NOT talk like that! It makes it a bit stiff and articifical, something that made me adore his books in the first place. It's a good book, OK story, likable characters, but it's by far his worst novel to date. I was actively disappointed…