Review: "The Broposal" by Sonora Reyes

The Broposal by Sonora Reyes
Published January 2025 via Forever
★★★

Kenny and Han have been besties forever—they grew up together, and they live together, and they're happy with the status quo. (Well. Mostly. Han doesn't get on very well with Kenny's girlfriend.) The one big difference in their circumstances: Kenny is a US citizen, and Han, though the US is the only home he knows, is undocumented. And when Kenny's relationship goes down the tubes, he figures the best best-friend thing he can do is to propose to Han instead—a few years of fake romance and Han will finally have the paperwork he needs to stay in the US legally. But of course, things rarely go to plan...

I didn't realize going in just how strong an Evil Ex plotline there would be. Kenny comes into the book in a long-term relationship, one that the people around him don't love but that he can't see an alternative to. And...ye gods, Jackie is awful. She's physically and emotionally abusive; she's racist, homophobic, jealous, greedy; she cheats on Kenny; she actively works to isolate Kenny from his friends; she does things that I unfortunately don't have spoiler tags for here; she levels some major threats against Han and continues to use those threats to manipulate Kenny throughout the book. I think the only positive thing we ever get about her is that she works at a domestic violence shelter, but considering that she both looks down on people who don't do such important work and is abusive herself (she doesn't believe that there's such a thing as woman-on-man abuse, natch), that isn't giving us much. (Oh, and I guess the sex is good, but since Jackie and Kenny—ooh, in an alternate universe their ship name would be Jackie Kennedy—aren't end-game, we don't see anything of that.)

Evil Villains Who Are Evil are boring. They have no complexity, and they're only ever in the plot to be evil. And the thing is: Jackie didn't have to be evil. She could be a liberal, supportive ally who gets on with Kenny's friends and donates to trans rights organizations and...like...doesn't get drunk when she shouldn't...and even one of the threats she makes against Han, perhaps made in a hotheaded moment, should be enough to make Kenny rethink his relationship. I mean—credit to Kenny—it is, but that should be enough to make it clear that Jackie is Not The One. She didn't need to be all the other things as well, and honestly I think there's enough racism and underlying threats from other characters (e.g., Daniel) to provide tension and stress. Toning Jackie way down (and perhaps cutting a few of the side plots; there were a lot) would have gone a long way for me.

So I don't know. I love seeing friendship stories; I don't think these two really have any romantic or sexual chemistry, but they seem to think they do, so that's nice for them, bro. (Also, to be fair: I'm more of an f/f reader than an m/m reader; people more invested in m/m spice might think differently than I do.) More than that, Han's situation—undocumented and with very few good options—is so underrepresented. I've known a handful of people in various circumstances who have had to think about whether getting married to get a green card is a viable option, and nobody has ever wanted to do it because it's so messy. Han and Kenny are lucky in that they are already friends and committed to being there for each other regardless of the shape of their relationship; Han never needs to worry about Kenny's ulterior motives. I think I'll be an outlier here in struggling so much with the conflict (read: Jackie), so still a good quick read if you like your villains so slimy they leave tracks (I don't) and social issues in your romances (I do).

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.