The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

I haven't been reviewing much lately and that's because in addition to losing my mind with Arrival, I've really not read anything worth talking about in a while.

Screwups broke that streak.

I loved this book. I mean, really loved it. It broke away from so many tropes that just bore me to tears (gay for you, weak/passive beta males, etc) and for me struck out in a new direction the likes of which I haven't witnessed since Amy Lane's Bolt Hole.

Jake is the big, muscular jock type guy who isn't a jock at all. His muscles are a result of years of abuse at the hands of his brothers and a need to defend himself. He is trapped in a life he doesn't want. He knows he can't escape it, but for just a year or two he hopes to live out the fantasy of what his life would be like if he got to make his own choices.

So he moves into the "artsy" dorm. And that is where he meets Danny.

Danny is more that that dreamy-eyed, extremely gay piano player that some authors would be tempted to make him. He has great inner strength which is coupled with a deep pain over a dark past that has left its scars upon him.

I am not a fan of angst for the sake of angst. However, angst that is real, that is genuine, that accentuates the characters' humanity instead of making them seem cartoonish can be very powerful.

The angst in this story is beautifully wrought. It's not the angst of coming out. Both characters know from the start they are gay. Jake must contend with the choice of denying himself that part of who he is in order to preserve the tenuous relationship he has with his father, or to be honest and risk losing everything.

Danny is convinced his secret makes him unlovable. But he gets lost in the fantasy of being with Jake. He has to decide if he can be honest with Jake or not, knowing that honesty can (and in his mind very likely will) end things with Jake.

There is a cast of beautifully realized supporting characters, friends and family. By the end, only two of these characters seemed more like story tools, things to make the plot happen rather than real people, but those characters were not really important.

I suppose I should warn people that some parts of this story deal with consent issues and there is a fair amount of violence.

If you like M/M romance, then you will like this. I am sure.

Five stars!

On my TBR list thanks.

Just finished this one last night, completely devoured it. I love college stories so I have been wanting to read this one as soon as I came out but couldn't find anyone to lend it to me.
I enjoyed this one a lot, so I second this recommendation.

So glad you liked this one Chris! Stayed up late to read it. In many ways a "typical" romance--but really not.

Whatever autobiographical echoes Jamie Fessenden brings to this book help to make Jake and Danny feel like people and not just words on a page. Set at the author’s own alma mater, and, indeed in the very dorm where he lived, apparently, there is an affectionate authenticity of place that frames the narrative.

This book came recommended to me by several friends, I suspect because Jake is a redhead, my personal weakness. The truth is, both characters are immediately appealing, physically and emotionally, because there is a simple sweetness to each of these boys. Both Danny and Jake mask their deep-seated fears, each weighed down by high-school baggage, as they inch ever more closely toward a relationship that goes beyond friendship.

Jake’s dilemma is of a more classic sort: fear of loss, fear of consequences, fighting with his desperate need to be free, to be himself. This is still very akin to what coming out was like 40 years ago in college. Jake is the closeted son of a macho, emotionally abusive father. He’s far from being a stereotype, and I really loved that his choosing to move into the Eaton dorm—the action that begins the story—is his quiet way of rebelling against the unloving authority of home. Fessenden draws Jake’s character with great fondness, and it is hard not to fall for him exactly the way Danny does.

Danny’s story is more tied to a younger generation of gay men, and is a fascinating, heart-breaking example of how positive change can have negative backlash. Danny’s been out since high school, and has a loving mother who supports him fully. Being gay should be easy for him, right? Not so fast. I’m not sure I’ve ever read of slut-shaming used in this way, and it was moving, because it stirred up my own ambivalence about promiscuity and casual sex. Danny’s dilemma is one unique to a generation of boys coming out in high school and becoming sexually active before they’re emotionally prepared.

Jake and Danny are both screw-ups—but they’re far easier to forgive and embrace for the reader than they are for themselves. We see their goodness; they only see their own failings.

Given the genre and the setting, obviously there has to be a strong sexual plotline as well as the main story arc. I have to hand it to Fessenden that the sex in this book is both hot and adorable. With its background issues of emotionless recreational sex hovering just out of sight, the story of Jake and Danny’s sexual connection is handled with incredible sweetness. Without judgment, Fessenden demonstrates the difference between love and hormones with a delicacy that I found impressive.

That reminds me I need to put this book near the top of my list---sounds quite good!

Glad you liked this one Ulysses. I loved Jake and Danny. And I loved that they weren't perfect. They were flawed humans, just like the rest of us. Danny's unable to believe he was worthy of love, Jake's flogging himself over his failure with his friend, that felt so real to me.

Great, now I have to read it again. :)

Exactly--they felt real--and both Jake and Danny saw the other as better, more perfect, than they saw themselves.

This is the second book I've read by Jamie Fessenden and I like his writing. College stories/coming out can be touch and go with me but I liked the no-nonsense realism of this one. I still prefer Billy's Bones however.

This book is set in 1996 so I wonder if the author is planning on giving readers a subsequent tale of these two post-college.