A review by emilywrayburn
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The first third or maybe half was good. The smut was really good. Then the characters started really bugging me. This was going to get a lower rating from me but it redeemed itself a bit in the end when the characters actually acknowledged some of their flaws that were really bothering me.  

Marcus was too perfect. April's characterisation was a bit inconsistent. I didn't entirely buy the romance. They just seemed to go from not particularly attracted to one another to super-duper attracted to one another in a very short amount of time, without anything to really suggest why. And Marcus held off on telling her about his fandom persona for so long. 

I liked what the book did with themes of emotional abuse (and how you don't owe family anything just because they "love you") and fatphobia and dealing with that. Though Marcus' parents were so awful they felt like caricatures. 

The scripts, excerpts from fanfics and scenes from previous fandom server chats somewhat served a purpose but only just. 

I have never watched Game of Thrones so I didn't pick up the parallels between this book and GoT fandom, but it skeeves me out if this book in itself is a bit of an author self-insert fic with the serial numbers filed off? Too meta! And a bit weird. Even when I was involved with fandoms, I could never quite warm to real person fic. 
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