Frat Boy and Toppy

A great mix between humor and a healthy dose of realism, the story of Brad going from ‘all jock’ to ‘gay man with a boyfriend’ had me laughing and thoughtful in turns. Much of what he goes through follows the classical path of denial to discovery and affirmation of who he really is. This story’s tone of voice is humorous, but some of what happens certainly isn’t. In many ways this is about much more than Brad discovering and admitting he is gay, it is the story of his realizing who he really is – and who he wants to be.

While Brad has no idea he is gay, at least that is what he tells himself until he meets Sebastian and the penny finally drops, he is very honest about his emotions. He is extremely confused, and following show more his thoughts is a study in back-and-forth until he finally makes up his mind. He goes from fulfilling everyone else’s expectations to discovering his own, then setting out to make them happen instead. The fact that he likes to be dominated makes everything even more interesting – and very hot! His self-deprecating comments are really funny and some of his observations of his fellow students made me grin.

Sebastian is the complete opposite from Brad, and not only because he is a total geek and history grad student. He may have known that he is gay for a very long time, but he has no idea how to handle emotions – so he suppresses them. As far as he is concerned it is all about the physical part of their relationship – until even he has to admit there may be more. His realization of what is going on isn’t as gradual and well-considered as Brad’s, instead, it is explosive.

These two men are a very nice contrast and seeing them struggle with the growth issues as well as a budding relationship was very interesting to watch. Their very hot bedroom activities added some spice to the proceedings which made this a great story that was fun to read. If you are looking for an intense romance with some great humor thrown in, and if the jock versus geek plotline interests you, this is an entertaining and humorous fresh look at what might happen if their different worlds collide. It certainly made me smile.


NOTE: This book was provided by Riptide Publishing for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. show less

What’s it like living until you’re twenty-one and in college feeling like something is wrong with your life, but not being able to put a finger on what it is? For some gay men, evidently, this is a state of being that occurs when they just go along with the flow, never questioning the disquiet they feel until it suddenly dawns on them that they are gay.

Tenino makes this real as her football player protagonist verbalizes his epiphany after going through a series of girlfriends and casual hookups through high school and college. Hunky Brad, while taking a shower in the gym with the other players, suddenly realizes that not only is he staring at his friend Collin’s ass but he’s been staring at the other players too and having vivid show more sexual dreams about these guys.

As Brad goes through some long-needed soul-searching, he also realizes that while Collin and the others are what he wants, what he really wants is Sebastian, the graduate teaching assistant in his history class. Although Brad has finally realized who he really is, he’s not ready to tell his fraternity brothers. He just wants to see where his attraction will take him.

To get Sebastian’s attention, Brad plagiarizes a paper, taking it right off the Internet. Sebastian, being attracted to Brad, says he will let him rewrite the paper if he promises never to cheat again. And so begins a match made in college.

Read the rest of my review at AAR: http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=9536 show less

Steeeeeeeeeep right up, Folks! This ain’t the fight your grandma wanted to see, but we’re on and you haven’t watched scrappy fighters like these in a while. I promise you, if you’re looking for dirty, you’ll get dirty. This ain’t no alphabet soup match, what you see here issssss gonna be real!

Who will win? Who will lose? I don’t know, it promises to be a real barnburner!

This fight was a tense one, because while College Boys was short and Frat Boy and Toppy really had some depth going for it, College Boys packed a better punch, beating the weak ending of Frat Boy and Toppy.

There’s not much difference here, as it deals with a straight-until-proven-gay jock and a book smart gay guy who is out. College Boys’ Jock was show more smarter than Frat Boy, but I hear Toppy is a fan favorite.

You’ll notice I don’t remember their names. I think there was a guy named Max? Maybe Paul, maybe Ryan. That might have been the pissy room-mate though, we kicked him off the mat when he got too involved in the match, no reaching through the ropes to help out your favorite, Javier!

Going into the fight, I thought College Boys was too much of a lightweight, granted it’s only a hundred pages or so between them, but I honestly thought you couldn’t compare a novella to a novel, as short as it was. And up until the final round, I was sure that it would be clear win for Frat Boy and Toppy, but College Boys persevered where the others stamina finally wore out. Once they came out, Frat Boy and Toppy were down for the count.

It was in the final round that I allowed myself to compare Frat Boy and Toppy to this fighter I saw a couple years ago when it was on netflix, one that looked more like a college project than an indie festival winner, even though it was great. I compared the coming out scenes, and found Frat Boy lacking in comparison to Defying Gravity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defying_Gravity_(1997_film) It’s always the veterns who do things better, huh?

All the previous development went out the window. Was the coming out supposed to be funny? Was the final sex scene supposed to be the eye of calm in a storm? A public kiss would have been a simpler and more satisfying ending. I see so many stories force a final KO. Whether it’s an epilogue or just one final moment before the impossible tale ends, I’m not sure, but Frat Boy and Toppy, while putting up a tough fighter, left a lot to be desired.

College Boys was hotter on the mat, though there was some fluffing around at times, psyching himself up for a satisfying clinch that we all were waiting for. Also, that angst about the first couple hits that Frat Boy and Toppy tried to land? Totally worth it, not even the worst crying I’ve ever seen in a fight. Balanced out by all the vim shown in the other rounds.
And boy did that fight have some action, it makes me think that no one really knows why they think phone sex is hot, until they live on the other side of a very thin wall of someone they lust after. Then they think of it as a poor substitute. Don’t deny it, just tune in when College Boys picks up the gloves again. You’ll thank me, and stick around for the sequels while you’re at it. show less

Can you believe I've never read anything from this author? Where in the hell have I been? (Smothered by my huge TBR mountain that's what!) Such a popular book this is. I can see why. I really liked it. I'd rate it 4.75 but I'm rounding up so 5 Hearts!

Frat Boy and Toppy" - the title is not the sexiest but when you read the story to get the meaning, it's really adorable and funny. I actually laughed out loud with this story. I don't know if you know this but I love to laugh and usually I might giggle here and there. There were some scenes (especially the final frat house meeting scene) where I literally laughed so hard.

Brad is twenty-one, majoring in physical education, buff, hot, a jock, part of a popular frat on campus, a renowned show more ladies man and just realized he is gay. *tilts head* Actually, he's always kind of knew but he never admitted it to himself. Luckily, a certain history TA who's also top-happy by the name of Sebastian makes Brad want to see the advantages of great sex. Poor Brad was looking to all the wrong places for substitutes. *shakes head*



Two guesses on how this was used by Brad (hint: not for his hair)


Brad's not the sharpest tool in the shed and I loved him the more for it. He didn't come across as a joke. His coming out was just the tip of his gay iceberg. What's a gay jock supposed to do when he wants to catch a hunky, geeky TA who's totally out of the closet? See the picture below for a hint. A unique way to catch a guy's eye I must say.



An original way to catch the guy you want!


The story switches POV (which I also loved) so we get into Sebastian's head as well. But I gotta admit it was more fun from Brad's POV especially the D/s tones from both main characters. Imagine your favorite drink being in a goblet. Your drink gets to be D/s - either you can immerse yourself fully...or circle the rim, maybe getting a little taste here and there. That's how the D/s was in this book - light, not too heavy circling the rim but not fully becoming a D/s book. But I see Brad's submissive tendencies and Mama likes...a LOT. Sebastian was in it for the kink and boy did they have some kinky fun. And no more hairbrushes were involved. *smirks*



This is how you know it's true love folks. Hamburger!

And before you think this story is a one trick pony with a tall musclebound meat head with a preference for bottoming (I do enjoy reading about the bigger guys bottoming) and a shorter, older authoritative figure topping, this story is much more than that. The internal angst was well played out in between the fun dialogue, great secondary characters (a "gay fag hag" - fucking loved him) and both MCs. Brad learns different aspects of himself he never got a chance to explore and Sebastian finally learns he can have more than a one night stand. It's angst-light, the boys, of course, make a mini-bungle of things with not communicating to one another properly.  But it ends with a very strong HFN/possible HEA finish. I loved the analogy to feeling like being in love is "like hamburger inside".

*holds out hand* Hello Anne Tenino, glad to finally make your acquaintance. I really like the light, sweet, funny, world you created. Takes a good hand to not turn it into sugary, flat, walking stereotype, mush.

Guess what? I'm definitely checking out more from this author!







A copy provided for an honest review." show less

Reviewed on Hearts On Fire... http://heartsonfirereviews.com/

I was happily surprised at how good this book was. I was expecting an over sexed coming out story and got so much more. Brad is a college jock who's trying to play the expected straight life by dating a lot of girls and letting everyone think he's a super stud. His fraternity brothers hold him in awe because of his conquests and girls date him just for the prestige. The truth is that girls really don't melt Brad's butter at all and he is coming to terms with the fact that guys do. Brad has a crush on the kind of geeky TA Sebastian but doesn't know how to act on it. Sebastian has taken notice of Brad and after some angst the two get together and Brad gives up his virginity to show more Sebastian along with his tender heart after a while. Yes there was plenty of sex in the story but there was a good amount of emotional interplay between Brad and Sebastian and Brad and his family and friends. I enjoyed the way that Brad's parents knew that he was gay even before Brad was sure of it. The drunken night with Brad and his older sisters talking guys was well written. Ms Tenino did a great job creating and filling out the personalities of all of the characters. Brad and Sebastian were just perfect together. Colin, Kyle and Ashley were terrific secondary characters and their support for Brad was great. I found the scene where Brad finally came out to his fraternity to be very funny as none of the guys would believe Brad after all his agonizing. The bit about Brad having Home Ec as a minor was a bit cliche, doesn't every gay man love to cook?, but that was a minor fault in an otherwise wonderfully written story. The ending was no real surprise but a HEA is always welcome. I'd recommend this little gem to anyone looking for a real feel good book. show less

I really enjoyed this book. Brad was so sweet and confused (for a while). The affection between the two MCs was clear even if one of them couldn't see it for a while ;) Great writing - will definitely try another book by this author.

In the past I have this story 5 stars.

Yeah not today. I tend to rate erotica different than romance because I love romance more. Also I have to be in a very specific mindset to enjoy erotica. So I was a bit surprised that I enjoyed myself so much with this story. I have to say I don't consider this a romance. The focus is on the sex, not the relationship. That's just a nice bonus to me. I like my erotica with a dash of romance.

The thing is, when I became interested in mm 'romance' I didn't really noticed any difference between the fm romances. Both were very tropey with unrealistic sex scenes that wanted to excite the reader. But back then mm romance were not mainstream. Also they were mostly written by women FOR women (some people show more will disagree with this). I never had a problem with this. Dude porn for women were rare at the time and I still think is kind of a niche thing. So book porn was a welcome suprise for me.

But then came the discussion that women shouldn't write about the gay men's experience. That gay men were objectified in these kind of books.

Which they are. I just don't have a problem with it. Never had. Women have been objectified for centuries. The problems begin when there are no other sources to go to if you want to read about them. Which women didn't have for centuries. Men did. Even gay men.

What I try to say is that this story was read by me when all those discussions were going on. And I was just happy with reading erotic romance books where the woman wasn't always a virgin, got raped or just always had pain while having sex. I got wary of stories in which the woman had zero agency. Even in contemporaries.

One of the questions I always got was "Why do you like reading about two men getting it on?" To which I would always reply: "Do you like watching beautiful people? Do you like watching two beautiful people get it on? I like watching beautiful men. So two hot men getting it on makes everything better."

And there you go. This story fulfill that need.
Is it hella tropey? It sure is.
Is it a realistic depection of a relationship between men? Nope I don't think so.
Did I enjoy myself? Yessiree. show less