Spoiler Alert is in full effect

Do yourself a favor. Get thee to Amazon or your favorite bookstore and purchase Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade as soon as you can. It’s going to be one of your favorites and will absolutely be one of those books you read over and over. Or you’ll keep buying copies so you can loan it to more friends. I’ll admit it: I didn’t want to pay the $14 Kindle was asking, so when I read that they’re dropped the price to $4, I was like YES. Now I’m mad at myself for having waited. I feel like I’ve missed out on months of delight because of a false sense of economy.

By turns funny and charming and heartbreaking, it offers a fascinating peek into the world of fanfic and behind the scenes of a big budget tv epic. April is a geologist by day and a writer of fanfic by night. Marcus is one of the stars of the show April writes about AND her best online writing pal. (He’s also a closet dyslexic.) Their online relationship is very close and a couple of years old when they wind up on a date together in a flukish manner. Neither one knows the other is their writing partner although Marcus figures it out pretty quickly. Hijinks ensue, along with the eventual unpacking of a great deal of emotional baggage on both sides.

I related so hard to both of the leads. I have struggled with so many of the same experiences as April. I related to Marcus a good bit, too, since I have my own disabilities. I really appreciated that April is a legitimate, plus sized curvy girl, and not someone referred to as such but without any of the characteristics of an actual curvy girl. For example, the sex scenes are fairly explicit, very sexy, not at all porny, and were obviously written by someone who has experienced sex as a larger person. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to see myself on the page of a mainstream romance.

4.5 out of 5 stars. I’m taking off half of a point only because I reserve that rating for books like To Kill a Mockingbird or Pride and Prejudice. Give me another read or three and I’ll probably adjust that rating up. That’s how much I loved this book.