Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1) by Olivia Dade

I've complained about this before, but I'm complaining about it again. My podcast situation is DIRE right now. So many podcasts take January off and I've cleared my backlog of podcasts and started just searching for all the books on my TBR list as audiobooks so I'd have something to listen to while I walked the dog. Sure, I could just take out my earbuds and listen to nature or listen to music or something, but what I want when I walk the dog is someone nattering in my ear so it seems like I have company while I'm walking the dog.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade and narrated by Isabelle Ruth was the first book that I looked for that was available. 

April writes fanfic about characters from a popular television show, a Game of Thrones ripoff. She's also a geologist and changing jobs to a location with a more laidback office culture. Marcus is the star of that popular television show and he also writes fanfiction as a way to pushback against the terrible scripts that the last few seasons of the show have produced. Through a twist of fate, they meet and have dinner together without knowing that the other is their fanfic beta reader. April admits it upfront, but Marcus holds on to the secret as they fall in love. There's some push back against their relationship, particularly in the media, because April is fat and Marcus is hot. 

The Good: Plus-size representation is good, right? I like that Marcus likes April's body and I feel like April owns her look and fashion sense. It's also good that April has genuine interests (her job, her fan fiction, designing costumes) and she has friends.  I also like that neither of them had to change who they were at the end of the book. There was no makeover for April, Marcus didn't start eating donuts around the clock, and they were still together.

The Bad: April is essentially perfect. She realizes she makes a mistake and immediately apologizes. She is in full emotional crisis, but somehow has the presence of mind to consider his feelings and alternate scenarios? I just can't with her.

But more than that? Marcus continually just lying to her when he should have had a conversation with her within a few dates? Just. No. I was absolutely disgusted with the whole thing.

The Ugly: Cringe. The fanfiction excerpts were cringe. The sex scenes were terrible. The constant use of the adjective "round" to describe April was sort of insulting. No. Just no.

I wonder if this would have been a different experience if I had read it instead of listening to it, but even then I think I would have found this book to be a terrible read.

1.5/5 stars