[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Avon in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Marcus Caster-Rupp has just finished shooting his final season of Gods of the Gates. His public persona has always been on the “pretty but dim” side, and as an actor he can play that role convincingly. But now that shooting is done, maybe he could be something… more.
No one knows Marcus is Book!AeneasWouldNever!. He writes Gods of the Gates fanfiction. He loves the book version which is so much better than what the show runners have done lately with the characters. His favorite person on the fanfiction sites is UnapologeticLaviniaStan. She gets him and gets these characters. She will flip when she sees what the show runners have done in this next season. And not in a good way.
April, UnapologeticLaviniaStan on the fanfiction sites, is ready for serious life change. She kept her cosplay and fandom life secret at work in order to be taken seriously. And she’s never posted pictures of herself online in her cosplay because she doesn’t want to deal with fatphobic trolls. But she’s ready to take a stand and be 100% herself both in person and online.
When a beautiful cosplayer is trolled on Twitter, and Marcus is pulled into the conversation, he takes the high road, asking the woman out on a date (rather than eviscerating the trolls, which was his first instinct). But Marcus has no idea April is his fanfiction best friend, UnapologeticLaviniaStan. And if anyone finds out about his alter ego, Book!AeneasWouldNever!, Marcus’ career will be over.
Review
This was fantastic! It includes a fandom as well as a convention, which I always enjoy. (You can read my post from earlier this year about fandom and fan convention stories here.) There’s a You’ve Got Mail piece to this too where April and Marcus meet in real life while also having an online relationship hidden behind screen names. At first, neither one knows about the connection. The main difference here is that they are not antagonists in real life like in the movie.
But the real life relationship means Marcus has to break the online relationship and keep the connection a secret for the sake of his job. While he likes April, it’s too soon to know if she can be trusted or if she would even understand the risks he has already taken by writing fanfiction – and talking about the show- in ways that could jeopardize his job.
I loved April and Marcus, together and separately. They have fantastic chemistry together. They also have depth. The author does an exceptional job with the emotional pieces of this – the personal insights, the empathy, the descriptions of toxic family relationships, etc. I adored this layer to the characters and to the larger story.
There’s a secondary relationship that was teased in this book, but mostly took place off-page. I had hoped it would get it’s own book. It seems like that relationship will be the focus of the next book, out next year. I am absolutely here for that story. This is my first book by this author, although I own one of her e-books – Desire and the Deep Blue Sea – and its sequel is on my wishlist. I’ll be bumping her books up on my TBR.
If you enjoy fanfiction and fandom stories like I do, do NOT miss this one! It feels like an adult version of the Geekerella/Once Upon a Con series, which I love. (Language, sex, CW: fat shaming, disability shaming, toxic families/trauma)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥*
*♥♥♥♥=Great! Might re-read.