Chasing Pacquiao. That's the title.

  

Today I’m talking about a book that I honestly have no idea how I found out about it. All I remember is that it came out on my birthday, and that’s Chasing Pacquiao by Rod Pulido.

The old blurb says self-preservation. That’s Bobby’s motto for surviving his notoriously violent high school unscathed. Being out and queer would put an unavoidable target on his back, especially in a Filipino community that frowns on homosexuality. It’s best to keep his head down, get good grades, and stay out of trouble. But when Bobby is unwillingly outed in a terrible way, he no longer has the luxury of being invisible. A vicious encounter has him scrambling for a new way to survive – by fighting back. Bobby is inspired by champion Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao to take up boxing and challenge his tormentor. But when Pacquiao publicly declares his stance against queer people, Bobby’s faith – in his hero and in himself – is shaken to the core.

There is a content warning in the beginning of the book I’m going to reiterate about how this book contains uses of homophobic language and graphic violence.

The first thing I noticed was that the chapters in this book were called “rounds” instead of chapters, which was a cute little detail. But the first chapter has Bobby sending a text poem in the Filipino form of tanaga, to his boyfriend, Brandon, and then his bestie, Rosie, sits down next to him and gives him a gift for his and Brandon’s anniversary. You do then see someone use a homophobic slur against another student before they get punched, and that’s why his secret identity must stay a secret. But at the end of the chapter someone has written a slur on his locker, and he outs himself in front of a crowd because he’s so mad about it. He then ends up trying to clean the slur off his locker himself by stealing the janitor’s cleaning supplies and only just manages to get it off before basically running off for a bit. And then at the end of the day, he realises he should have left with everyone else, and he ends up getting jumped by this group of guys on his way out. I will say, when this book says graphic violence, it’s there from the get go.

Bobby sees the Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya fight at Brandon’s dad’s birthday party, and that’s what inspires him to take up boxing at Jab’s Gym. This gym, he ends up literally running to one day and getting a job as a cleaner as a foot in the door to be able to use the facilities and learning how to box since he has literally $3.76 to his name and can’t afford to join.

I almost appreciated how willing Bobby was to literally fight his homophobic demons (Rex and his gang). I know quite often, especially in YA, the happy happy way is the one taken, but the fact this was filled with violence, it showed that sometimes that sweet, passive way people like isn’t always an option. Say how it’s easy enough to just say to ignore things and they’ll go away, and this book was a prime example of how things don’t always work out that way for some people. And when this book said it had graphic violence, ooh was it intense. Like me wondering whether characters were going to be straight up killed. It definitely isn’t one for the faint of heart, those people who like to just read nice happy sweet things. 

Bobby definitely had his crusty moments, as did all the characters. For Bobby, you could tell that some of his stuff came from desperation, some of it came from fear. There’s a moment where Brandon wants to hold his hand, but for the neighbourhood they’re in, it’s “too public” for Bobby. Then again, part of that does come from the fact that the two of them are from different worlds basically. While you don’t get to see Brandon’s world, you see that Bobby’s is full of homophobia and violence, so the fact that he isn’t publicly out is more down to self-preservation than anything else – all in the vein of trying to stay alive basically. But in all of that self-preservation, that does lead to some of the things that he does, while being understandable, being a little crusty in terms of how they affect the people around him.

When it came to Brandon, you could tell that because he was so rich, he had that rich person blindness. That kind of thing where, because everything is easier for them, they don’t see how difficult it is for other people. He had that whole thing where, because he’d never had to worry about money, he couldn’t see how just constantly spending, or covering things, made Bobby uncomfortable – almost like Bobby was being taken care of, whether he wanted that or not. It was sort of like, Brandon could just do something because he had the money, and made life easier for himself, whereas Bobby had basically had to work harder for the things he had. A good example is when Bobby starts working at Jab Gym and gets paid, he ends up paying for something, because he has the money to be able to do it, but Brandon is still there just like, “just let me get it”, not realising how big a deal it was to Bobby. This does sound like I’m just slating Brandon, I’m not. You do get to see his journey throughout the book as well.

It was quite interesting just how late the reveal of Manny Pacquiao speaking out against the LGBTQ+ community came during the book. It makes sense in the context of what happens in the book, and it makes sense for when it happens. It is just the case of I thought it would end up coming quicker than it did. I thought it was going to be an inciting event. However, had it come earlier in the book, I don’t know whether it would have made as much of an impact. It came while Bobby was training for his fight, like, in the depths of it. So it ends up being this source of conflict as he’s leaning to fight because of Manny Pacquiao, but all of a sudden Manny makes this foul statement, so how is that going to impact Bobby?

I’d describe the ending of this book as rocky, but not rocky as in bad. Rocky as in uncertain. I’m fairly certain that was done on purpose, given the whole vibe of the book. The fact that it was predominantly about Bobby getting ready to fight his bully, and then having his whole world rocked when he finds out what Manny Pacquiao has said and how that affects his belief system. It then comes to the head of the aftermath and everyone’s reaction to the fight around him, including his mum. Even though the book ended after a fight, there were still a bunch of things that needed to be cleaned up that weren’t. And I mean that in the sense of in Bobby’s life, not from a storytelling point.

But I don’t know, I enjoyed this book. I’ve not got any real way of closing this out, since I wrapped up everything quite well. I think it would be interesting to see what happened in the aftermath, later in Bobby’s life. Do I think that’s going to happen? No. But at the same time I don’t necessarily need it to happen.

Okay, bye!