Books › Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert
422 pages
A warm, witty love letter to fandom that celebrates the radical joy of taking up space and being loved for exactly who you are.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like wrapping yourself in a favorite oversized sweater while scrolling through a perfectly curated AO3 tag. It is a warm, deeply empathetic romance that balances sharp, laugh-out-loud banter with a tender exploration of vulnerability. The narrative moves at a brisk, engaging clip, seamlessly weaving clever fanfiction excerpts into a story about the terrifying leap from digital anonymity to real-world intimacy. Beneath the swoony celebrity-romance exterior lies a profound emotional core focused on radical self-acceptance, body liberation, and the dismantling of toxic family expectations. It is a triumphant, cozy, and fiercely sex-positive experience designed to delight anyone who has ever found sanctuary in a fandom and dreamed of being seen, understood, and loved for their most authentic, unapologetic self.
- Mood
- warm
- swoony
- triumphant
- cozy
- Tone
- wry
- earnest
- affectionate
- humorous
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- radical self-acceptance · the sanctuary of fandom · vulnerability of being seen · dismantling toxic family dynamics · body liberation
- The writing
- Witty and accessible, the narrative balances sharp, banter-filled dialogue with deeply empathetic internal monologues and clever epistolary fanfic excerpts.
- The arc
- The journey moves from the safety of hidden digital personas to the terrifying, triumphant joy of being loved in the unforgiving light of the real world.
- Who it's for
- Readers who live on AO3, champion unapologetic fat representation, and crave romances where characters love each other for their nerdiest, truest selves.
Content notes
- fatphobia
- toxic family dynamics
- past emotional abuse
About the book
Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. The world may know him as Aeneas, star of the biggest show on television, but fanfiction readers call him something else: Book!AeneasWouldNever. In this charming celebrity romance, Marcus gets out his frustrations with the show through anonymous stories about the internet’s favorite couple, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone discovered his online persona, he’d be finished in Hollywood.
April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she’s long hidden her fanfic and cosplay hobbies from her “real life”—but not anymore. When she dares to post her latest costume creation on Twitter, her plus-size take on the character goes viral. And when Marcus asks her out to spite her internet critics, truth officially becomes stranger than fanfiction.
On their date, Marcus quickly realizes he wants more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. But when he discovers she’s Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to keep 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?
Description from Open Library.
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