The God Box

by Alex Sanchez

[clementine]

This had the potential to be a really important book. The idea of reconciling homosexuality with strong religious beliefs in a small, conservative town is still fresh and controversial, and the mere fact that The God Box touches on this so directly makes me like it.

But the fact is that most of the potential is wasted. I will state for the record that I am the direct opposite of religious, so the very religious overtones didn't necessarily appeal to me, although a lot of the interpretation of the Bible through the lens if sexuality was interesting. However, this doesn't account for the other issues I have with the book.

First of all, the characters are mostly caricatures. Paul obviously goes through a lot of character development, since that's the point of the story, but I still don't get a really concrete sense of who he is. As for the others, Angie is the nice and patient girlfriend, Dakota is the fiery ginger, Elizabeth is the cold conservative, etc. And the dialogue is horrendous! Most of it is so stilted, and they often use words or phrases that no teenager has used in the past 25 years.

I mentioned that I found the Bible interpretation interesting, but at times it bugged me. It was obvious that all the Bible study drama and Manuel's fight with Cliff was just a vehicle for Sanchez to refute common misconceptions about homosexuality in the Bible. It's not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just that it was really poorly done. It made me cringe.

Aside from that, I thought everything just wrapped up a little too perfectly. Manuel not only lived, his right eye miraculously retained 95% of its vision! Paul's dad accepted him pretty easily! Angie wasn't really mad at Paul and she found a boyfriend with two moms! The GSA was a rousing success! Come on now.

I guess in the end, this book tackles some complex and mature subject matter in such a simple way. I got The God Box in the Teen section at Chapters three years ago, but it just feels like middle-grade fiction. Sanchez's intentions were neat, and his ambitions were commendable, but the final product feels like he's talking down to teens instead of really challenging them with this book.