I've mentioned a few times that I've been trying to blitz through various LGBT books as part of my last spring to my annual reading goal of 1 title per day - which this year means 366 titles. Thus became an impetus to read through all of the Franklin U books, as I had finally completed the (thus-far?) 8-book series by waiting for the different titles to go on sale. These books are all set in some weird fictional university that literally has the initials "FU" and with their sports teams being the Kings - thus "FU Kings". Each book stands alone, but characters reappear across the titles based on where they are.
And since I've finished the whole series, I figured it might be fun to do a quick roundup of the titles to help you decide if you want to mess around with these boys. The books have been written by different authors, but they seem to been given guidelines to follow like a lot of characters snorting to show derision, an above-average number of LGBT parents for these characters, and a lot of characters turning out to be versatile or at least open to being versatile once they connect with the objects of their desires.
1 - Playing Games - Braxton is the brooding bartender at Shenanigans. Ty is a star lacrosse player. The two secretly have the hots for each other and this ultimately plays out as a grumpy-sunshine romance. This actually wasn't too bad and a good entry point for the seies.
2 - The Dating Disaster - Felix is femme and hypersexual and super into bears. Marshall is demisexual and, thus isn't into hooking up. The book starts with the two on a terrible blind date together and of course, they keep running into one another after. Not my favorite book but it's okay.
3 - Mr. Romance - Charlie keeps "accidentally" making people think they're dating him. Liam is also "Mr. Romance." - they guy who markets a service to help people set up dream dates to woo their people of interest. The two end up together because Charlie needs help not making people think he's being romantic and of course feelings intermingle. This was a genuinely interesting concept - pretty fun.
4 - Bet You - Spencer is a nerd. Corey is a frat boy. The frat house is right next to where Spencer is staying and a constant source of irritation. Not quite grumpy-sunshine. Doesn't really venture into interesting technology.
5 - The Glow Up - Chris is a junior from a sort of hippie family and has been secretly crushing on this mysterious guy who he has been ogling in the study hall since he was a freshman. Aiden is determined to get through university and dedicates almost all of his time to studying. Of course the two will come together. This was a little mid but not terrible.
6 - Learning Curve - Cobey is a football player forced to move back to the dorms as he has been distracted from his schoolwork. Vincent is more of a nerd or at least intellectual as he does tutoring work on the side. Now that they're roommates, they inevitably get together because Cobey is a softie or whatever. A little endearing but it works.
7 - Making Waves - Alex had a crush on Remy, his best friend's brother, since high school. They had a moment before things went bad for Remy's family. They meet again at university but his best friend now hates his brother. I wasn't too into this one since they already had an attraction predating the story, so it was more about juggling the brother's drama.
8 - Football Royalty - Peyton is the star quarterback. Levi is someone that Peyton had an intimate encounter with before school. Now Levi is has transferred to the university just as Peyton is trying to focus on qualifying for the NFL. Another story where there was attraction before the meat of the book and that sort of took a lot out of it for me.
Overall, it's a light enough series with some surprises here and there. I think the series peaked with the likes of Mr. Romance and Learning Curve but didn't end as strong as it could. I don't know if they're going to add to the one but there seems to be a larger shared universe with other series of titles by the same authors, so there's that.
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