Originally posted here at Yaoi Radius.


In a liberal arts college tucked away in the nondescript Mideast, there is a sweet little love story brewing between two unlikely people: a football coach and ladies' man who thinks himself very very straight and an openly gay chaplain who is emotionally closeted when it comes to new relationships. There's no clear-cut villain, no central figure our main protagonists need to cut down Scott Pilgrim-style in order to realize their love for each other, but there's plenty of drama and excitement and conflict for everyone involved. Plus, the emotional rollercoaster between Chip and Foster isn't the only story going on in Simple Men; there's also the side plot of football playing students Brad and Jason, who are slowly realizing their friendship might be something more after being dared to kiss under the water in the men's shower room. There's lots of male/male romance with some male/female and even implied female/female on the side, so you'd be hard pressed to find at least one couple you don't like in the entire book.

As for the setting of the book itself - the Verona College - for a religious college, it seems terribly accepting of homosexuals, even hiring an openly gay chaplain. This is not to say that religious automatically equals homophobic, but the fact that none of the staff have any serious hang-ups over Foster is a little unreal in this genre. What animosity there is at his relationship with Chip is more directed at Chip for being . . . well, Chip. There are some people in town not cool with the fact that Chip is in love with another man, including some of his past one night stands, as well as the usual machismo neuroses in the male-dominated sports sphere over Jason and Brad's romantic developments - but beyond that, the majority of the story's drama is due to the relationships themselves, not to outside forces trying to bring them down (a very common plot device in male/male romance novels). So yes, Simple Men could probably comfortably fit inside the genre of 'gaytopia fiction', in which the characters have nothing or very little to fear about their LGBT identities from homophobic surroundings, but if you enjoy your male/male stories rife with the chosen couple fighting the abominable queer-hating intolerant right, you may leave this book wanting more.

This is not to say that Simple Men disappoints, because it does not. It takes a smart look at the fluidity of sexuality through Chip's character and his newfound attraction to Foster, as well as the fickleness of relationships and how they can both harm and help us - from Chip's recent failure of a romance with his girlfriend to Foster's reluctance to enter any new relations since being cheated on by his last lover and finding out about it in the worst way possible. There's also plenty of humor to temper all the histrionics, especially when it involves Brad and Jason or Katie riding around campus in her golf cart. It's a fun, light read that is only two hundred pages and definitely worth the price tag for the paperback (it also helps that the cover image itself is pretty easy on the eyes), so if you are looking for a romance between two grown men trying to balance their love lives and careers as well as two young men discovering their own mutual affections in a college setting, you can't go wrong with the story of Simple Men.
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3.5 Stars ( )