Rainbow in the Dark

June 1, 2021

Gr 8 Up-Rainbow wakes up in a surreal world, with few memories of her previous life, not even knowing her own name. She soon meets up with other kids who are surviving in this dystopian game-world, always searching for the mythical "home portal" while they lose more and more memories. The plot is interspersed with memories of Rainbow's life up until this point and pieces of the short story she wrote for English class (which was dark enough to get her sent to the school counselor). This existential story has heavy themes of depression and suicide which are not wholly lifted by the more positive ending. McGinty reflects both the absurdism and horror of living with mental illness. Older teens will better understand the more abstract ideas, but younger ones will still get something from this story. "Spells" in the game that prevent physical contact and censor all swear words keep this story PG-13 when it otherwise could be rated R. VERDICT Sartre's No Exit if purgatory were a video game. Hand to teens with depression, who like "Dungeons and Dragons," or who play indie video games; all three will feel seen.-Jeri Murphy, C.F. Simmons M.S., Aurora, IL

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Starred review from August 2, 2021
McGinty (The End of Fun) plays with storytelling and the subconscious as gender- and ethnically-unspecified Rainbow struggles to reconcile memories of contemporary teenage life with their current existence in the Wilds, a video game–esque world featuring RPG-like classes and ranks, machine forests, and glowing fuzzies. Blue call boxes generate slips of paper that assign quests or memories; in Rainbow’s memories, they are a kid living in a desolate seaside locale with their brother, CJ, older by 18 months, and their single mother. Memories featuring “The Eternal God/dess of Teen Depression,” a suicidal immortal who keeps failing to kill themselves, whom Rainbow imagines and wrote about for an assignment, intersperse recollections of an argument with CJ, and a subsequent search for him on a foggy cliff. Rainbow also meets Chad01, an ornery warrior, as well as fast-talking mystic Lark and her twin brother Owlsy, a rational scholar, all of whom are Lost Kids, attempting seemingly nonsensical and never-ending quests to open a portal to homes they no longer remember. Relayed chiefly through an enthralling second-person perspective, this dark yet hopeful tale, ideal for fans of A.S. King or the Shustermans’ Challenger Deep, balances humor, existentialism, and Rainbow’s mental health with great aplomb. Ages 12–up.

August 1, 2021
Grades 8-11 At the beginning of this novel, "you" stand in a foggy landscape unable to remember your age, gender, or name. You walk until you reach a small blue box, where you are tattooed with a name and level: Rainbow, Nobody. Rainbow climbs down to an empty refugee center and joins up with three other Lost Kids, who explain that Rainbow must complete a quest in order to find a portal home. Together, they wander through the Wilds, a surreal, gamelike world encompassing infinite horizons, a bottomless chasm, and machine forests where gears and parts intertwine with fur and bloody meat. Call boxes spit out brief memories that help Rainbow reconstruct a tragedy along the sea cliffs of northern California, involving Rainbow's older brother, CJ, and their cat, Goldfish. Rainbow also remembers writing an essay for school titled "The Eternal God/dess of Teen Depression." Subtle correspondences between these memories and Rainbow's quest are an intriguing highlight, as are bursts of snarky, dark humor in a novel that recreates the experience of mental illness and suicidal ideation.

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Starred review from July 1, 2021
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz gets the Black Mirror treatment in this dark fantasy. Rainbow comes to in a new reality with no directions, no plan, and only fuzzy memories of what came before. Small clues and directions surface in the form of scraps of paper delivered through blue refrigeratorlike devices as Rainbow proceeds down a ladder to a refugee camp in the sky. As Rainbow continues the journey, the teen encounters three others--grumpy Chad01, and twins Lark, a mystic, and Owlsy, a scholar--and the group bands together to face deadly quests, impossible challenges and a supposedly benevolent wizard named Dave who may have nefarious plans for his polo-shirt-clad devotees. The challenges become more dangerous while Rainbow gradually remembers home--a move to the coast, ongoing depression and thoughts of suicide, and a complex relationship with once-beloved brother CJ--and wonders what awaits on the other side, if there is one. McGinty deftly updates L. Frank Baum's classic tale with modern-day existential angst, creating a unique world that's terrifying in both its foreignness and its familiarity. In this novel written in the second-person present, Rainbow is a gender-ambiguous character, never given pronouns or identifiers; physical descriptions are likewise scant, leaving readers to fill in the gaps. A page-turner that handles mental health with grace. (Fantasy. 14-adult)

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