For Real

by Alexis Hall

June 1, 2015 · Riptide Publishing

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Sarah L. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Erotic Romance category.

Here is Sarah L.'s review:

Warning: mild spoilers ahoy

I loved this book. Like, had to seriously think hard to come up with anything to discuss that I didn’t love about it. And this is coming from a person who’s been in a serious fiction-reading drought lately (if we don’t count fanfiction, which some people don’t). For whatever reason, I’ve been finding it harder to get into novel-length stories lately and easier to just let myself bask in the wonder of watching my favorite characters get together approximately 19,384,947 times.

I signed up to review For Real because I remembered being intrigued by the summary back when it was on sale once before, but for whatever reason I didn’t end up buying it. But I like BDSM romance, and I like reading about couples of many genders and orientations getting together, so this seemed like it would be right up my alley. How right I was!

The book opens with Laurence (D to his casual BDSM hookups, Laurie to his friends) arguing with the gatekeeper of a BDSM club who doesn’t want to let him in because he’s not wearing appropriate fetish gear. He is 1000% done with the whole scene and really tempted to just go home: at least part of his ennui is because he keeps running into his ex, Robert, and getting to see how very happy he is with his new partner, while Laurie hasn’t moved on, not even a little. But, as fate would have it, he does get in, and that’s where he meets Toby.

Laurie and Toby have instant chemistry, which is both really exciting for Laurie and utterly terrifying, because BDSM for him has just become a way to get off, and not a very good one. He tries to control it, to reduce Toby to another one of his hookups, but he fails miserably, right from the start.

This was not a romance with a big misunderstanding, but rather one where the characters’ own problems and issues kind of ran head-on into each other and exploded, which is my favorite kind (I probably need help). Laurie has never had a significant relationship that wasn’t with his ex; they got together in college and learned about their kinks together. He gets very uptight about the age difference between himself and Toby, but they really aren’t that far apart in terms of relationship experience. Toby is irresistible to Laurie at least in part because he feels that deeper connection that he hasn’t felt since he was with Robert. Laurie is terrified of having that and losing it again, which he feels is inevitable because of the age difference.

Toby, meanwhile, has had sex before, but never a relationship. He’s willing to settle for what Laurie will give him, or that’s what he tells himself, but he can’t help reaching for more, pushing for more. But at the same time, Toby feels deeply unequal to Laurie in many ways, because of his age, because of his lack of experience, because Laurie is a doctor while Toby dropped out of law school and is working at a diner while he tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Add to that the fact that Toby is so used to being in second place with the people he loves (his mother is an artist who is always more focused on her art than on him and he’s never had a father figure other than his great-grandfather) that he allows Laurie to hold him at arm’s length for a long time, and you’ve got an amazing amount of conflict just waiting to be explored.

What I liked about this book (in no particular order):

I really enjoyed the subtle fun the author poked at the trope of the BDSM club, which seems to appear in each and every BDSM romance I’ve ever read. I’m sure these places do exist (I’ve seen websites) but Alexis Hall does not take them seriously at all and that was kind of refreshing. I also, as someone who struggled with acknowledging my own sexual preferences, really appreciated the avoidance of the idea that there must be something dark or problematic in the characters’ lives that caused them to seek dominance and submission. Some authors equate “kink” with “damage;” fortunately that was not the case here.

I loved the fact that Laurie and Toby’s first direct sexual contact had its awkward moments. Although they really enjoyed themselves, there’s a moment in the middle where Toby is doing the thing that I think everyone has done at least once, where you’re lying on the bed and your partner is doing their best and it’s still kind of “meh.” It gets better for him, of course, but I liked the fact that their sex wasn’t all magically wonderful right from the get-go.

I liked the fact that Toby’s dialogue sounded like a nineteen-year-olds, even if it was sometimes a little jarring in the sex scenes. But they were still extremely hot, so it didn’t detract, at least not for me.

I liked the emphasis the author placed on how acts aren’t in and of themselves dominant or submissive. The dynamic in their relationship is clear; Toby is the dominant one, and Laurie is submissive. However, many of the times their specific sex acts would, to an outsider, appear to stand that dynamic on its head, but both of them are perfectly clear and beautifully happy with their sex life.

I liked the way that their relationship allows Laurie to reclaim his love for submission. Ever since his breakup, he’s been going through the motions, hooking up with random strangers to get the submission that he needs, but it’s not satisfying to him. It’s become pretty meaningless, in fact…until Toby.

I loved the fact that, although Laurie is self-acknowledged to have been kind of a slut – in the fact that he’s gone through most of the doms in the London BDSM scene, some of them a few times, no one shames him for it, not his friends, and not Toby. He does have one moment where he’s embarrassed by it, but even in that moment he acknowledges that it was what he had to do at the time.

I loved the fact that Toby refused to be peer-pressured into doing a scene with Laurie in public, even when Laurie’s ex and friends were there watching and judging, to see if he could be good enough to be with Laurie. He realized that it wasn’t right for them or where they were in their relationship and he had the maturity to stop it.

What I didn’t like:

This was probably a function of the fact that the story was written in alternating first-person chapters, but we never really got a good sense of Laurie’s ex. He was off-screen for the majority of the story, so we only see him through the lens of Laurie’s pain and nostalgia. And the one time that he actually has a speaking role –

And then after that scene, he’s never heard from again, which seems odd considering that such a point has been made throughout the book of the fact that Laurie can’t get away from his ex.

Final Verdict:

If you like BDSM erotica and M/M romance, this is an awesome book. I really, really loved it. Like, I didn’t want to pause to make notes the first read-through, so I happily reread it a couple of times, and I’m probably going to use some of my settlement credit to buy the other books in the series. However, If you’re not comfortable with BDSM, same-sex relationships, or relationships with a large age gap, this is probably not for you.