Dumb Jock

By: Jeff Erno

Narrated by: Tommy O'Brien

Jeff Irwin is short, timid, and studious. A bit of a social outcast, he lives quietly in the shadows of the popular kids at his school, his life ruled by his ever-present fear of rejection or failure.

Enter high school football hero Brett Willson and the chance for Jeff to embark upon the challenge of educating the world's dumbest jock.

But what develops between Brett and Jeff proves far more challenging than any tutoring session. In 1983, rural Michigan isn't ready to embrace love between two men, never mind two teenage boys. If they're going to make a go of it, Jeff will have to come out of his shell - and Brett will have to prove he's more than just a dumb jock.

©2013 Jeff Erno (P)2015 Dreamspinner Press

I lost 20 lbs of crying!

This is so common of a theme for a gay coming out story. They always make me cry, some more than others. I was surprised that this one got to me though, I didn't feel that it was going to be that good or maybe I just thought I would not allow this one to get to me, but it did. HS was a lost time for me. I stayed deep in the closet in 1960s, in Oakland, CA. I had so many crushes, that I kept to myself, and I barely graduate from HS. I was surely very depressed & also I was dealing with going to Vietnam and war. I became the very first person that my draft board ever gave a CO status to. Since then I have spent 40 years in the medical field savings my patients from the horrors of illness if I could or comforting them in their dying. People still hate me because I am gay, and stories like this one brings up the sadness of my youth and how alone I had to be because of other people's hatred of me. I always wonder if they ever realize the harm & pain they inflicted on a lonely young man that just wanted what everyone one else wanted someone to love and someone to love him back!

Pulled on my heartstrings

I love it when a book can make me laugh and cry and Jeff Erno was a master of it in this book. The start of the book was slow and I almost gave up on it about 10% into it because I thought it was too unbelievable how the romance is initiated and progresses, but then it really picked up. Once their romance gets started it is a fun roller coaster that made me feel along with the characters.

Adequate but sad

Brett used Jeff. He caused him anguish. The story’s plot without spoilers left me with a bittersweet feeling. Good tale otherwise

Love vs the enforcers of HS heterosexist normativity

The narrator is very good and the story too. Matt is quite a character and we witness his self-awakening and empowerment in the face of heterosexist normativity and its dumbass enforcers in the High Schools. More things than usual are left to the imagination and this is fine perhaps except for the abrupt ending. But then if I wanted to hear more about Brett's horrible coach and his homophobic parents and the prejudice of small everytown, I guess I wouldn't be reading a romance!

Pretty good

I was a little torn about this book not because it wasn’t written well, because it was, but because there were times when I didn’t particularly like one of the main characters. However, at the same time I rooted for them to work things out regardless.

The main characters here are Jeff Irwin and Brett Wilson, teenagers who live in different social stratospheres in school. Jeff is the stereotypical nerd and Brett the quintessential jock and they have very little in common, or so they believe.

Jeff and Brett meet and become friends when Jeff is basically blackmailed by the coach into tutoring Jeff in English. Jeff knows he’s gay but doesn’t tell anyone and he develops a major crush on Brett. He doesn’t think Brett could ever feel the same way, despite how close they become.

Jeff is thrilled when Brett admits he has feelings for Jeff and has messed around with guys before, despite posing as the straight jock at school. They begin a sexual and romantic relationship and this is where I had some issues with the story.

Brett doesn’t treat Jeff all that great in the big scheme of things. Several times, Jeff performs oral sex on Brett and there isn’t a reciprocation. It felt more like Brett was using Jeff for sexual gratification and there were times I wondered exactly if Brett was just using him.

The use of the pup as Brett’s nickname for Jeff was shown as a cute appellation, but I didn’t see it that way. Following a guy around like a puppy dog, doing whatever he asks, and going along with whatever he says is not a good thing and certainly isn’t true love. Yes, these are teenagers who tend to do this sort of things and that’s why I didn’t focus on it too much.

By the time Brett bails on Jeff despite promising a romantic night alone I was convinced there was no way they could be an HEA, which would’ve been realistic. However, the author does give the characters their HEA and while I loved Brett’s public proclamation of live, I wasn’t 100 % convinced they could make it long term.

There’s an epilogue that shows the boys years later that I believe could’ve been left out, though some readers might enjoy that sort of things. The chances of a 14 year old boy finding the love of his life AND staying with him forever is extremely slim.

Despite my reservations, I enjoyed Dumb Jock a great deal. Not only did the author create two fresh characters in Brett and Jeff, he also portrayed several interesting supporting characters, including Jeff’s friends and family.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to this book to anyone looking for a fresh, sweet young adult tale.

Narration Review:

Tommy O’Brien did a great job with Jeff, from whose perspective the book is written. Jeff’s inner voice felt like that of an actual teenager and never once did he feel older than 14 years old.

O’Brien did very well with Brett, as well as all the supporting characters, of which there are many. With many male narrators I cringe when they do female voices because they rely on attempting higher voices and it comes off as fake. That was not the case here. O’Brien is a talented narrator and I won’t hesitate listening books performed by him in the future.

Enjoyed it for what it is

It definitely has strong themes. LGBTQ, D/s, Alcoholism, Death, etc. You can tell that it wasn’t edited well because some things were very repetitive and/didn’t align with things that were said and done at different times in the story. Overall I enjoyed it though because I’m into the themes. If you’re not into there themes mentioned, the book isn’t for you.

Couldn’t put this down!!

This book had me in tears… it’s crazy to me, cause I lived a very similar experience, back in high school the hot transfer student that was rich, popular, and quarterback of the varsity team, he was my tormentor but later I found out he was only like that cause he liked me. He grew up and joined the navy and now is a hunky firefighter. We may of gone our separate directions but we still talk and have fun. Thanks for this amazing story! I couldn’t get enough!

A story for gay men

Listening to Dumb Jock made me genuinely sad. And not because the book itself was sad (though there are VERY sad parts) but because gay literature has fallen so far since it was published that I don't know if it can ever recover. Most m/m books in recent years are written by and for straight women, or "queer" women who are functionally straight, for all that's worth (not much). You cannot find anything written by anyone who seems to have a clue what gay men--teenagers in this case--have actually gone through. Almost half the men in m/m relationships in these modern books are bisexual, and a further 25% are straight. which is... not my experience, certainly, nor any gay man I know. Coming out of the closet or being in denial about one's sexuality has been replaced by something called "bi-awakening" which is about 500 times more common in fiction than reality, but if you criticize it a hundred straight women will descend on you claiming to know someone who it happened to. I'm pretty sure they're all just friends with the same guy. The one-star review from Heather K. is genuinely hilarious to me because she doesn't like that the characters have flaws or have (very tastefully written) sex, which is very typical of the prudish views a lot of romance readers actually hold when you scratch the surface. She didn't like the fact that there is a three year age gap, because the characters are so young, but I can tell you that this age gap is very, very common in high school and the older partner is not a sexual predator, lol.

Anyway, enough about what the book is not. What it IS is a very sweet book about a couple of kids with issues. It's a nerd/jock romance, with Jeff being the nerd and Brett the jock. It could easily be cliché (and if it had been written a few years later it would have been), but it isn't. Too often in romances between two men of differing degrees of masculinity, the less masculine one is super "sassy" and the jock ends up having to grovel and apologize constantly. I think the women who write them simply write their own fantasy relationship and then plug in a not-very-masculine male character to stand in for themselves. But here, Jeff is not "sassy." He starts out as a wallflower with a case of hero worship and largely stays that way. He has endless capacity for forgiveness and that's a good character trait, even though it allows Brett to walk all over him sometimes. Brett, our jock, is mostly a good guy but makes a lot of mistakes. They're two very realistic characters who find themselves in a sweet and mostly realistic book (a couple idealistic parts notwithstanding).

There is one section where the romantic plot is derailed for a few chapters to focus on a tragedy that occurs, and normally I would be irritated at this but it's so well-written and so genuine that I found myself as rapt as I was for the rest of the book. The book is written in first person from Jeff's point of view only (another point in its favor, I hate the POV switches that pervade modern romance novels). There is a VERY light dom/sub element to their relationship which is ten thousand times more realistic than the very bizarre books being written in recent years. Once again Heather's review is hilarious to me, because she states that she's super into dom/sub books but was uncomfortable with this one because the characters are so young. Look, modern dom/sub books involve the characters calling each other "daddy" and changing each others' diapers, so I'm sorry if you think the idea that two high schoolers might have a very vaguely-defined control thing is... whatever you think it is.

Anyway, I'm aware this is less a review of this book than it is a lament for the state of m/m literature (god forbid I refer to it as "gay" literature because what about all the straight men in m/m relationships??), but the fact remains, this is a fantastic book with characters that are recognizable as gay teenagers and a romantic plot that is compelling, if occasionally meandering. The narrator is fantastic too, particularly when he sings a few hymns about halfway through the story. That could have been really bad, as it comes at a very important and emotional point, but he acquits himself nicely. So if you like your gay romances to be between a straight or bisexual jock and a sassy gay moron with more snappy dialogue than substance, you might want to avoid this one. If you want to know what gay teenagers actually act like and think like, then buy the book, and please write more like it.

Nice YA story

This is a YA book – so you can expect that this has a fairly predictable message – but it’s a sweet and good one. Nerd loves jock. Jock surprises nerd and loves him back. Everyone has to grow up and be brave.

I think there was a lot of “fantasy” type stuff in here – meaning, that people didn’t necessarily act like I think they would IRL. But… that being said – they could act that way… especially since this is only one perspective- Jeff’s.

I appreciated the lengths the author went to really get inside Jeff’s head and let this story out as one of hope for all those bullied along in high school.

There are some interesting components to this – as a YA book. 1) Off page sex – both are underage and it fits, but it’s there. 2) a bit of a Dom/sub thing – not overworked or “inappropriate” per se – interesting setting for it, though.


Audio

Tommy O’Brien is not my favorite narrator but he did a nice job with the narration, neither really adding nor detracting from the overall experience.


I think my overall impression was one of “good”. It was good. It didn’t “wow” me or make me think “how awful”. It was good. Certainly enough to make me consider more from the series when I’m in a YA mood.

Heart warming

The first time I read this I cried. Such a fantastic book. I still cry. Every time I read it.