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‘The Mariposa Club’ follows four gay teenagers living in “mostly-Mexican southern California” who set out to form a GLBT club at Caliente Valley High School as their final, fabulous act before they graduate. They try to support each other through family problems, while also dealing with the inevitable fall out that goes along with intense teenage friendships. At the same time they aim to make their last year in Caliente as fun as possible and start to plan for the future, although their options sometimes appear limited.

Maui, Isaac, Lib and Trini have spent years as ‘The Fierce Foursome’, a group of close gay friends who identify with the flamboyant side of gay society. They adopt many practises traditionally associated with women, for example Trini wears blouses and dresses and the characters refer to each other as ‘the girls’, but they add their own twist on their behaviour, which makes it part of the unique gay culture. It’s hard to describe because I keep wanting to say their behaviour is quite extrovert, but that’s only true of Trini and Lib. Maui and Issac aren’t loud, or especially outgoing outside of their small friendship circle, but within that circle and in daily life they still do and say things that would be considered flamboyant if a straight man did them. This is a section of the gay community I’ve always found really hard to understand but this book definitely caused me to have a little personal epiphany and bumped me down the road to greater understanding (more reading and listening needed). Yet another reminder that fiction equals powerful.

The strength of this book is the characters and their relationships with others. All four main characters are created as distinct, interesting individuals with interests and personalities that are developed throughout the book. The complexity of the friendship between the boys feels realistic and their relationships with each other are sketched simply but strongly, so even though they fight and make up regularly it seems believable that they could so quickly forgive each other, because of the depth of their friendships. I love the detailed character portraits presented, that show Rigoberto Gonzalez knows everything about his main characters and one of my favourite things about ‘The Mariposa Club’ is how anti-generic the boy’s world seems. Skin colour, religion, cultural heritage, looks and economic background are all defined for the main characters and many of the supporting characters. It’s rare to see so much thought go into what can easily turn into invisible issues.

Although the secondary characters like Maddy, the sheriff’s daughter who is the fifth member of the proposed GLBT club (named The Mariposa Club because mariposa means butterflies and ‘fluttering butterflies’ is how Mexicans refer to gay men), aren’t as fully developed as the main characters I did feel like they were described enough for me to get to know them and understand their relationships with other people. It may not be possible to get an intensely detailed picture of the feelings of Maui’s dad, or Tony the closeted member of the local gang, but with light handed, brief sketches Gonzalez provides their moods and emotions in a way that allows easy access to their core characters.

‘The Mariposa Club’ deals with some serious issues about the conflict between straight male culture and gay teenagers, but it also aims to be a fun book about teenage friendship. It seems like it would be hard to realistically portray characters who have been hurt badly, as going through much of life like average teenagers who can be as cheerful as they are gloomy but Gonzalez has managed to strike an effective balance between the overbearing issues the boys face and the exciting feeling of being a teenager. While I remember the book’s message about the extent of the prejudice the boys face, I also remember the fun times they have. The book’s overall tone is light and the writing is quick and cheeky, making it a buoyant read that aims to bring readers to serious issues, by way of engaging, exuberant characters.

Quite a bit happens throughout the book and sometimes it feels like the author is trying to cram too much plot into such a short novel. There’s all the usual teenage drama like fights and ditching school, the issues that comes specifically from the boys sexuality like trying to set up the Mariposa club and fights with parents about being gay and there’s the extra, sort of unrelated plot lines the author throws in to move the action in a specific direction like parental health scares. It does feel like some plot points get lost in the background until Gonzalez is ready to resurrect them to further other, more dramatic plot incidents. This is especially true of the boy’s attempts to establish the Mariposa club, which gets shunted out of the way as bigger issues come up, but then is brought back near the end of the book to enable a dramatic ending. Mostly though this isn’t a big issue, as the novel flows from plot point to plot point, casually referring back to previous episodes on occasion, but sometimes the inclusion of so many different plot points left me feeling that the book was overcrowded.

‘The Mariposa Club’ is a smart, fun young adult novel that presents an interesting set of friends and treats its characters as unique and different human beings. If you enjoy it so much that you want to review it be sure to leave a link to your review in my comments section.

PS Make sure to check out my post about the racial and gender issues with this novel’s cover.

Other Reviews

Queer YA
The Happy Nappy Bookseller
Fledgling

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September 2019

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