Name: Latitude Tamarind's review of Boys Come First by Aaron Foley
Item: Boys Come First
Rating: 5
Author: Latitude Tamarind

Aaron Foley

This hilarious, touching debut novel by Aaron Foley follows three Black gay millennial men looking for love in Detroit. Suddenly jobless and single after a devastating layoff followed by a breakup with his cheating ex, advertising copywriter Dominick Gibson flees Hell's Kitchen and finds himself trying get his life back on track in his hometown of Detroit, where he's got one objective in mind: To exit the shallow gay dating pool ASAP and be married by 35--and he's only got two years left. Dom's best friend Troy Clements, an idealistic teacher who never left the Motor City, finds himself at odds with all the men in his life: A troubled boyfriend he's desperate to hold onto, a perpetually dissatisfied father, and his other best friend, Remy. Remy Patton is a rags-to-riches real estate agent in town with his own problems--namely choosing between making it work with a long-distance paramour or settling with a local Mr. Right Now that's not quite Mr. Right--but his friendship with Troy may be compromised over his latest high-stakes deal. Follow these three men as they confront their evolving friendship, but also individual hiccups--workplace microaggressions, bad Tinder dates, situationships, frenemies, learning the Tamia hustle--while attempting to navigate the new and changing Detroit.

Boys Come First

Lindsay

And one thing I know for sure— just because I’m broken, I can’t just break someone else.

“What’s the point of having a gay son if he won’t even go in my purse?”

You’re not supposed to feel burdened by the city that made you who you are.

And this was all new to him because he didn’t know how to plan for the kind of disappointment he’d worked so hard for the past eight years to avoid.

I don’t want to grow with a man. I want a grown man,

The emotional state of an eighteen- year- old baby gay can best be compared to a squirrel on a power line: moving far too fast along a tightrope with no preparedness for any kind of shock.

The dot- dot- dot was annoying— men who end sentences with ellipses need to get to the fucking point,

I’ve never been faithful to one particular barber. If anything, most of the barbers I go to aren’t any different from half the men I’ve dated: unreliable, full of excuses, all talk, and only available at their convenience.

“You know what?” Dominick said, taking another gulp of merlot. “Why do we compare men to dogs? I wish I had a dog. Dogs are fuckin’ loyal. They’re happy to see you when you get home, they cuddle ’n shit, and they love you to death. You know what men actually are? Giraffes. Like who the fuck needs a giraffe? They look good, and maybe they have a big dick— at least I’m assuming a big- ass bitch like a giraffe has a big- ass dick. But at the end of the day, they’re pointless.”

They say New Yorkers are South Carolinians in Timbs, and Chicago is made up of Mississippians in winter coats. Detroiters, then, are ’Bammas wrapped in fur.

They say things at weddings about completion—“ You complete me.” It suggests there’s something incomplete about both parties, doesn’t it?

The last thing Dominick wanted was to be someone’s daddy, a sixtysomething single man with a wrinkled chitterling dick and a hog maw butthole who thinks he’s forty years younger and creeps on anybody and everybody.

Sien Van de Wouwer

Latitude Tamarind

This is an incredible read, for Michigan fans, millennials, and gays everywhere. Featuring: a group chat done well in a book! Detroit! Black gays over the age of 30! The changing landscape of Michigan and Detroit and growing and changing in our time! M i c h i g a n, everywhere. Five stars.

Remy, Troy, and Dominic are three gay Black millennials just trying to get through life. The three of them are going through career setbacks, unfaithful boyfriends, shitty hookups, and complicated family dynamics. And through it all, they have each others backs when the chips are down. These are some of the most dynamic, fleshed-out characters I've read in a while. All three of them are at slightly different places in their careers, romantic lives, financial situations, and family situations, and their stories provide a showcase of issues that a lot of millennials are facing. But they are also very specifically Black gay millennials, with all the joys and the troubles that that specific identity brings. 

I particularly loved the focus on their friendship group. Each of their romantic/sexual situations were a large part of the story, but the core of the book was truly the friendship between these three men, all the ways they could help or hurt each other, whether they meant to or not. And I will always be a sucker for a well-developed friendship group. 

The setting of this book is one of the most crucial parts of it; it truly could not have been set anywhere but Detroit without becoming a totally different book. I love books like this, where the author obviously knows the area they're talking about and bring all of their love to the forefront in their writing. Detroit absolutely comes alive in this book, adding an extra depth to the story as a whole that can't be beat.

The thing keeping this from a five star for me is the issues I had with the style of writing. The first few chapters felt more like disjointed monologues than a cohesive narrative, which made it a little difficult to get into the book. I don't know if I got used to the style or Foley just did a better job of bringing the different viewpoints together later in the book, but once I got past the 10% or 15% point, I got a lot more immersed in the story. By that point, the almost info-dumping of the three men's backgrounds were done and they were actually interacting with each other more and moving the story forward. The one thing I never did figure out was why Remy's chapters were in first person but Troy and Dominic's were in third person. It got distracting every time we came to a Remy chapter because every time I was trying to figure out why the POV perspective changed. 

Despite my issues with the style here, I will definitely be looking forward to reading more from Foley in the future. Boys Come First was a joy to read and definitely a book to remember

Sien Van de Wouwer &
Boys Come First by Aaron Foley

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Sien Van de Wouwer &Boys Come First by Aaron Foley

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Sien Van de Wouwer &
Boys Come First by Aaron Foley