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Warning: Full spoilers for the book follow.
As you all know, I’m one of those people who thinks that escapist genres like romance and sci-fi and fantasy can actually have a lot of power when it comes to allowing us to think about real-world issues. Obviously we read these genres to get away from the unpleasant realities of everyday life, but at their best, these stories can provide us with new ways of viewing and feeling, often giving us a world as it should be rather than it is.
This brings me to The Broposal, by Sonora Reyes, which managed to hit all the right notes for me. It’s sweet and swoony and sad and sexy, even as it also engages and grapples with some real-world problems. It never panders to or talks down to the reader, and its protagonists are two young guys that you’ll immediately feel like you know. Ugh. Seriously. I really loved this book (and it made me cry more than a few times, which as you know is always a mark of a great romance book IMHO).
As the story begins, Kenny and Alejandro–who goes by Han–are best buds. Though it seems that is going well for them, the specter of Han’s undocumented status hangs over them, which leads Kenny, who has recently broken up with his abusive girlfriend Jackie, to suggest they get married. After all, they know one another well enough that they should be able to fool everyone into believing they’ve really fallen or one another. The more time they spend together, though, the more intense their feelings or one another become, until it’s clear that their marriage is going to be something far more authentic than either of them had anticipated. Unfortunately, there are quite a few impediments in their way–including a bitter and vengeful Jackie–and it’s going to take a lot for both of them to figure out whether they have what it takes to go the distance.
Reyes has a perfect sense of romantic and comedic timing, and you can feel these two young men starting to feel the tugs of desire long before they start to accept it themselves. This makes sense, though, given the extent to which the two of them have shared almost every aspect of their lives together even before the story starts. Sometimes, you end up finding out that the person you were looking for is the person that’s been there for you the whole time.
It certainly helps that Kenny is open about his own bisexuality. It’s really quite refreshing to see a young man in a romance who is as open about who he is as Kenny, which makes him the perfect complement for his bro. Han, on the other hand, has to really grapple with the fact that he’s gay and that he’s falling in love with Kenny. This is all a lot for anyone to handle, let alone someone who’s also dealing with lots of other stuff, including the fact that his mother is an addict, that he’s undocumented, and that he has a real difficulty in opening up to other people. In other words, he’s a fully-developed character, and I enjoyed getting to spend so much time with him.
Oh, and did I mention there’s kink? It turns out that Kenny is quite the kinkster, and one of the last scenes we get is of Han and Kelly having sex and exploring this aspect of their sexual dynamic. While this book obviously has a lot going on, and while it would have stretched it out to have too much of the kink explored, I did somewhat feel that it got short shrift. Perhaps there’ll be a follow-up, one in which we see the two of them navigate their new life together? One can but hope.
While the love between Kenny and Han is obviously the emotional heart of this book, it also makes it clear that Han’s life is structured by his status as an undocumented person. So many of the things that Kenny takes for granted–such as going to the hospital–are things that Han can’t do, at least not without significant risk that he’s going to be deported. And, as if all of this weren’t bad enough, he also has to cope with the fact that his mother passes away from an overdose and, due to his status, he can’t even go home for the funeral. The scene in which he reads her final letter to him emotionally wrecked me, and I’m sure it’ll do the same to anyone who’s ever grappled with a loved one’s addiction.
In the end, of course, these two bros do end up having their happily-ever-after, and it feels earned. We’ve seen just how much these two characters have grown, we’ve laughed and cried and been turned on with them, and so to see them find their own little slice of happiness is a reminder that sometimes things really do turn out okay. I’m also thrilled to see some queer Latino representation in queer romance.
Now, as some other reviewers have noted, Jackie does tend to be a bit too cartoonish to ever be believable, and she’s truly exasperating to spend any amount of time with. However, I would like to point out that it’s traditional in romantic comedy to have a villain who’s more cartoon than fully-fleshed-out character, so I’m willing to forgive this. For real, though, Jackie is a bit of a monster. It takes a particularly noxious sort of person to use the threat of deportation to get her ex-boyfriend to break up with his fake fiancée, and there were times when I actively hated this character and would have definitely liked to see less of her. However, I do appreciate that the novel grapples with the reality that even those who work with the abused may themselves be abusers, and oof, is Jackie ever abusive.
All in all, I found myself falling in love with The Broposal. It has characters that I really did fall for, just as they were falling in love with one another. And, while both of our protagonists have their fair share of anxiety and other mental health issues, Reyes doesn’t feel the need to beat us over the head with these aspects of their personalities. Instead, they’re just allowed to be two crazy young men who happen to fall in love with one another while trying to keep one of them from being deported. This was everything I wanted in a queer rom-com, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
