I’ve been meaning to read Olivia Dade for years because so many people love her books and representation of fat women in romance is still so lacking. It took me a while to get around to it, but I finally grabbed an audio copy of Spoiler Alert from Libby recently. 

I really wanted to love this book, for so many reasons. The role of fandom and the fanfiction community. The fat and dyslexic representation. And yet… in the end, this one wasn’t for me. Let’s dig into what I did like, and then I’ll try to parse why this popular book didn’t work for me as a reader.

(Full disclosure: This post uses Bookshop.org affiliate links).

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What I Liked

I really liked April as a character. She was confident, smart, and unafraid to be herself and set boundaries in her life. 

The role of fanfiction and the little tidbits of it we got between the chapters was a lot of fun. As someone who spent a good amount of time on Fanfiction.net once upon a time, it was a great reminder of the community and connection that fanfiction can build. 

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What I Didn’t Like

My first couple of issues with this book come down to personal preference. Dual POV romances are always a hard sell for me, although I think this one does narratively work better when we have both characters. 

This book also has too many spicy scenes for me. I always find long descriptions more awkward than anything, and this is definitely a good one for those who love multiple instances of on-the-page spice. I personally prefer to keep that mostly off the page, so it wasn’t the best reading experience for me personally. 

Beyond these elements, I just struggled to stay invested in the story. It was obvious really early on what the central struggle between the characters would be, and I just found myself wanting to get it over with. 

Each character had some growth and development to do, which I love in a romance. Unfortunately, a lot of that wasn’t really resolved until the (legthy) epilogue. So, the book felt like a lot of waiting for the other shoe to drop, which got a bit repetitive for me after a while. 

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Ultimately, I can definitely see why so many people loved Spoiler Alert and the rest of the series, but it’s not for me. I’m glad I gave it a go, however, and can definitely recommend it to fans of a spicy book with a nerdy element.