Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

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Title: Spoiler Alert
Author: Olivia Dade
Series: Spoiler Alert #1
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: October 6, 2020
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Isabelle Ruther
Length: 12 hours and 48 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »fat shaming « Hide Spoiler
Source: Chirp
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2022 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2022 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Book Depository ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:

Blurb:

Olivia Dade bursts onto the scene in this delightfully fun romantic comedy set in the world of fanfiction, in which a devoted fan goes on an unexpected date with her celebrity crush, who’s secretly posting fanfiction of his own. 

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. While the world knows him as Aeneas, the star of the biggest show on TV, Gods of the Gates, he's known to fanfiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever, an anonymous and popular poster.  Marcus is able to get out his own frustrations with his character through his stories, especially the ones that feature the internet’s favorite couple to ship, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone ever found out about his online persona, he’d be fired. Immediately.

April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she’s hidden her fanfiction and cosplay hobby from her “real life” for years—but not anymore. When she decides to post her latest Lavinia creation on Twitter, her photo goes viral. Trolls and supporters alike are commenting on her plus-size take, but when Marcus, one half of her OTP, sees her pic and asks her out on a date to spite her critics, she realizes life is really stranger than fanfiction.

Even though their first date is a disaster, Marcus quickly realizes that he wants much more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. And when he discovers she’s actually Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to hide from her.

With love and Marcus’s career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled?

My Review:

4 stars — I definitely enjoyed this story, but I think my hopes were higher for it…which happens sometimes you know?

I enjoyed both of our characters.  They were flawed, and made epic mistakes at times, but deep down they were both really good genuine people.  You wanted to root for them, both as individuals, and as a couple.  April was sassy, and as with so many heroines — vulnerable yet strong.  Marcus was adorable, eager, confused, earnest.  And together they had great chemistry, from friends to more.  I loved the fun moments they had together, and how well it balanced with more serious moments.

Unsurprisingly (even from the blurb), the conflict was entirely predictable, and I’m not always there for ‘secrets coming out’ stories…but it was okay, I appreciated the resolution more than I was expecting.  For example, April didn’t need someone to tell her to think about the situation some more and look at it from different perspectives.  Yes, she was prompted by some events, but she drew her own conclusions and did her own thought experiments.  And Marcus always knew it was wrong.  I kind of was hoping he might have a more *on page* look at why he made the decisions he made, and how he wanted to change from then on, but it was still satisfying.

One of the things that truly drove me crazy about the writing is that there would be long expositions in the middle of dialogue — that is NOT my jam.  I think I’m even less of a fan of that writing technique when listening to the audio.  At least if I was reading, I could flip back a few pages and refresh.  Obviously, not going to bother most people, I’m very particular about wanting to know everything exactly.  I’m a bit of a weirdo.

Even though we didn’t get a lot of secondary character interaction, I appreciated the friends they each had in the background.  From the people on the fan fiction site, to Marcus’s fellow cast members (shout out to best friend Alex, I do think I’ll need to read his story), to April’s new and quirky co-workers.

The family situations were really interesting as well, and even though neither of our MCs explicitly noticed the parallels, I did.  They both had parents whom they loved, but who were toxic to them.  It was interesting.

Both of their individual struggles actually really hit for me.  Marcus’s story reminded me quite a bit of my brother, as he has undiagnosed dyslexia, and always thought he was stupid…and he’s recently discovered the world of audio books and is enjoying reading for the first time.  And while I don’t have a LOT of fat shaming experience, I definitely feel the strain of society’s views and opinions of fat people.  And I’m pretty tired of it.  It was nice to see a story with a diverse body heroine where, while her size was a part of the story, she was in fact loved by her self, and by Marcus, as she is.  It was refreshing.  Now I just need a few more stories where the heroes are body diverse…  Seriously.  They don’t all need abs for me to love them.

The strange highlight of this story were the little snippets of other stuff at the end of every chapter — sometimes it was bits of fan fiction (often relating to what had just happened in that chapter).  Sometimes it was scenes from movies that Marcus had appeared in.  And in general, both of those kinds made me LAUGH OUT LOUD.  There were also snippets of DMs between BAWN and ULS, and that helped to understand their previous relationship.

So yeah.  It wasn’t the abject hit I was expecting, but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself.  And I can definitely see checking out Alex’s story, though perhaps not on audio.