Title: Rainbow Milk
Author: Paul Mendez
Rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
Favorite Quote: “Was it the duty of the white father or of the majority-white school to teach the black son about the facts of life and the order of things, how to see a world that will only look at him a certain way?” Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books, 2020, p. 178.
Review: This is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. On a whim a while ago, I signed up for the Queer Book Box out of the UK. (I’m not sponsored, just a fan.) And this was one of the first books I received. It is the first book from the subscription and I will for sure be continuing my subscription for the foreseeable future because if this is the quality of the book I will receive, I cannot imagine wanting to stop ever. Oh my gosh.
Rainbow Milk primarily follows Jesse, a Black, British teenager/young adult (as the novel progresses), as he [SPOILERS GOING FORWARD] is forced out of his church, his home, and his family, for being gay. It then follows him as he explores London as a sex worker, learning about himself and about the world. There is also a brief intro (that comes to make sense at the end of the book) of a Jamaican man and his family when they first move to the UK.
This is Mendez’s first novel, and he has already become an instant-read author for me - anything this man writes, I will be rushing out to read. He weaves a story of equal parts trauma and hope - exploring issues of racism and homophobia while also promising a narrative of friendship and found family. Definitely be sure to look at a complete list of triggers before reading this book, because it is often very heavy, but overall, I would highly recommend.
About that Quote: So much of this book is an exploration of race, of gender, and of sexuality. While this particular quote is explicitly about race, it also shows the protagonist’s relationship with each of these aspects of his identity. He grew up in a household with a white stepfather and in a homophobic church that frowned on sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage. Long before he was cast out of his home and his church, he was maligned by his own family for never being who they expected him to be.
I think this quote signifies that broader theme throughout the novel - of how external forces acted on Jesse as he attempted to figure out his own identity.
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