Guest Review: Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

Posted May 25, 2011 by Ames in Reviews | 3 Comments

Main Character: Sergio and Kimiko
Love Interest: Lance and Allie
Series: n/a
Author: Website|Good Reads

While Sergio is attracted to both girls and guys, he’s only dated girls before. Lance has always known he’s gay, but he’s never had a serious boyfriend. When they meet, there’s an instant sizzle, and they know that they’ve got something special. But will it be enough to overcome their differences?

Allie has been into guys her whole life, and she’s been in a relationship with her boyfriend, Chip, for two years. But when she meets Kimiko, despite everything she thinks she knows about her own sexuality, she realizes she’s falling for her—hard. And Kimiko has been crushing on Allie since the moment they met, but it’s impossible for her to believe that a bombshell like Allie could be interested in her. Can they find their way together to a relationship?

I’ve never read Alex Sanchez before and a review at Dear Author grabbed my attention so I requested this from the library. The content was right up my alley, but the writing left something to be desired.

Lance and Sergio are two teenage guys who go to different high schools and both have girl best friends. They meet online and drag their gal pals along for that initial meeting. The friendship between Sergio and Kimiko and that of Lance and Allie are somewhat similar. They are best friends. They are to the other that person you turn to when you have good news to share, or you want to discuss a guy you like (or in Kimoko’s case, the girl) and they’re pretty tight. I enjoyed the friendship between these 4 characters.

Now the relationships. First, let’s tackle Lance and Sergio. Sergio comes from a hispanic background and he’s openly bisexual. His parents are supportive but they do prefer when he dates girls. And Sergio just got out of a very hurtful relationship with a girl so he wants to take a break and focus on the guys. He’s done a few hook ups before but he doesn’t want a commitment, he doesn’t want to open himself up the way he did with his girlfriend, who stomped all over his heart. And then there’s Lance. Lance is out but he’s never had a boyfriend. And he really likes Sergio. But he is too caught up on the bisexual part of Sergio. Which got on my nerves. Why is it such a difficult concept to grasp? You’re attracted to both genders. But whatever, that was Lance’s issue to get over, even though his reaction annoyed me. But that also led to some confusion between Sergio and Lance when Lance seen him out with a girl at the mall. Was she a date? Was she a friend? But at the same time, when Sergio seen Lance at the mall with a guy, he didn’t know who he was either. The initial conflict here was Lance’s inability to ‘get’ Sergio’s sexuality and then once he got over that the conflict became Sergio’s inability to commit.

Now there’s Allie and Kimoko. Allie is the blond, girl next door, dating a jock named Chip. They’ve been together two years and although she loves Chip, she doesn’t feel the same as she did when they first got together. She wonders if it’s because they’ve been together so long and their relationship is evolving or is it that she doesn’t love him that way anymore. And when she tells Chip that she wants a break, he’s perfectly understanding and tells her he’ll wait for her. So cute! But that confuses Allie even more. So that’s Allie’s frame of mind when she meets Kimoko. And she loooves hanging out with Kimoko. They have a lot of similar interests and they hang out a lot. Which makes Allie question her feelings – does she like Kimoko as a friend, a friend that she’s attracted to?

And Kimoko. I find she was the most interesting out of the bunch. She’s Japanese and she’s constantly at odds with her mother over the way she acts and dresses. Kimoko is a lesbian but not out to her family. She knows her mom would probably disown her if she knew. She’s after her enough about the way she dresses! Out of the four characters, I felt Kimoko’s story had more meat to it. She also had some self-esteem issues (I don’t blame her) and she wondered what Allie saw in her and doubted her feelings.

Overall, I did enjoy reading about the struggles these four characters faced. They were all interesting stories but I just didn’t care for the writing. I felt like it was too shallow – which could be the tone the writer was going for as these are high school kids. I wanted some more meat. C+

For all my Moms out there, I’d give this book a rating of: