About the Author

Alex Sanchez spent almost fifteen years working with youth. He is the author of the teen novels Boyfriends with Girlfriends, Bait, The God Box, Getting It, Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, and Rainbow Road, as well as the Lambda Award-winning middle-grade novel So Hard to Say. Lambda Literary Foundation honored Alex with an Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize. He lives in Thailand and Hollywood, Florida. Visit him at AlexSanchez.com.

Reviews

"A well-crafted novel."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Adventurous, multifaceted, funny, and unpredictably insightful..."
-- School Library Journal

"Sanchez...just keeps getting better at his art."
-- VOYA

Gr 6-9-Thirteen-year-old Latina chocoholic-chatterbox Xio can't keep her eyes off blond-haired, steel-eyed Frederick, the intriguing transfer student just in from Wisconsin. At first, the soft-spoken newcomer, unsure of his new Southern California junior high and maybe his own sexuality, doesn't know what to make of her pursuits. Slowly and surely, Xio charms her way into his life and soon absorbs him into her group of fabulous girlfriends whom she dubs the "Sexies." Content with this new niche, and his position on a pick-up soccer team, Frederick gradually becomes aware of Xio's real agenda: to make him her first boyfriend. All the while he finds he can't keep his eyes off Victor, his soccer buddy. Frederick's sexual confusion escalates, as do his dodging techniques when it comes to Xio's advances. However, when she gets him in a closet with her and at last gives him a smooch, things boil up to crises. Adventurous, multifaceted, funny, and unpredictably insightful, Sanchez's novel drops melodramatic pretense and gels well-rounded characterizations with the universal excitement of first love. The action is described through chapters that alternate between Frederick and Xio's points of view, and both voices ring true. The author deftly presents portraits of a boy teetering on the brink of reinvention who must grapple against his own fears that he might be gay and the girl-a high-spirited character whom readers definitely won't forget-who wants him.-Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"A well-crafted novel."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Adventurous, multifaceted, funny, and unpredictably insightful..."
-- School Library Journal
"Sanchez...just keeps getting better at his art."
-- VOYA