Maia Anna Robinson, a biracial gay high schooler, has never felt more certain of where she belongs in the world until the day she marched with her girlfriend at the pride parade. But because of circumstance beyond her control, the day that is meant to define her existence forever is the day that everything changes in her life.
It's the year 2026 and Doug Miller, a fanatically religious conservative, is president. He is obsessed with the idea that the members of the LGBTQIA+ community are "diseased" and thinks it is his "duty" to "cure" them. He has them taken from their homes and sent to camps, to be "changed" for the better.
They are sent to a place where their inner core is extinguished and all that remains is the ash of who they were.
Maia is one of those prisoners. She is only seventeen. She just saw her girlfriend die.
What will happen to Maia in this near future dystopian LGBT+ young adult novel, "Rainbow Plague"?
Maia Anna Robinson, a biracial gay high schooler, has never felt more certain of where she belongs in the world until the day she marched with her girlfriend at the pride parade. But because of circumstance beyond her control, the day that is meant to define her existence forever is the day that everything changes in her life.
It's the year 2026 and Doug Miller, a fanatically religious conservative, is president. He is obsessed with the idea that the members of the LGBTQIA+ community are "diseased" and thinks it is his "duty" to "cure" them. He has them taken from their homes and sent to camps, to be "changed" for the better.
They are sent to a place where their inner core is extinguished and all that remains is the ash of who they were.
Maia is one of those prisoners. She is only seventeen. She just saw her girlfriend die.
What will happen to Maia in this near future dystopian LGBT+ young adult novel, "Rainbow Plague"?
I see their rainbows dim in the darkness, and I long to hug them and tell them that everything is going to be all right; but I canât because my hands are tied behind my back, and if I were to speak, the guards at the front of the school bus would bark at me to shut up.
I breathe in and out, letting the stale bus air fill my lungs.Â
I hear the bus door open, and a clatter of footsteps getting louder and louder. Several stop next to me, in the back of the bus.
A small boy, maybe twelve years old, stands next to me, hands tied behind his back. Wet, thick, tears are scattered all over his innocent pale face. Grey and green snot sticks out of his nose. His chin trembles, a small bruise spreads on his right cheek. Blood spatters his blue elephant patterned pajamas.
I dart my eyes at the soldiers standing behind him with slight smirks on their faces. âWhat did you do to him?â I want to yell. âHow could you hurt a little boy?â But Iâm afraid of them. Of their Tasers and guns and big fists. I donât want to be like my parents, tased to the point of fainting and falling to the ground. Heads thudding on the floorboard, red oozing. They were still breathing, still alive, but. . . clearly in pain.
Iâm mad my parents got tased to the point of almost not being. But Iâm enraged that my younger sister Janice had to find their bodies on the floor and see me dragged by the other soldiersâ
I donât get it.
This shouldnât have happened. But it did.
âWhatâs your name?â the boy whispers as he sits next to me.
âMaia. . .â I bite my lip. âWhatâs yours?â
He shakes his head, his eyes wet, âI donât remember.â
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Rainbow Plague by Lia Athena is not an easy read for this 50-something queer person, but it is a novel that has great value for the young adults and teens who may have forgotten about the horrors of conversion therapy and about the major milestones achieved by the LGBTQIA+ community in the last few decades.
Maia's story is told in first person for the most part, with sections in bold indicating a departure from her point of view to that of President Miller. Her voice is clear, and the level of detail in her descriptions makes the story and its setting incredibly vivid to the reader. Maia, along with other teens, has been relocated to a camp somewhere with the goal of "curing" them of their queerness. Maia's character is well-developed, and as we read the novel we learn about her relationship with Aimee (her girlfriend), her parents, and her little sister Janice (nicknamed "Jam"). The reader easily identifies with and empathizes with Maia from the beginning, and as we all settle into her new life at the camp, we meet other characters who are also individuals. Details like how one of the characters is a YouTube celebrity whose shocking pink hair has been shaved off (even though she's female and baldness certainly doesn't fit the camp's idea of feminine beauty) help readers situate themselves in the near future of 2026.
That the book is set only a few years from now--two years into the next presidential term--is important to the overall impact. Not only does the timeframe mean that readers can identify with the mundane details, but also that the novel is sounding a clear warning bell. During the Trump administration, there were constant attacks on the progress made by LGBTQIA+ folx. And, President Miller is very clearly a satirization of Mike Pence--down to his discomfort about being around women who are not his wife and in his tendency to call his wife "mother."
Here's hoping that this novel doesn't become as prophetic as Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale seems at times; instead, I hope people read Rainbow Plague and realize how quickly things can turn around again. The novel is a disturbing reminder that we can't be complacent and assume things can't be turned back on a grand scale.