Occasionally, while engaging with media like Romance Novels, I'll have to grapple with an unexpected dichotomy.
On one hand, I absolute support fanfiction writers... in fact, I think it's a very courageous thing, to make your writing freely accessible on the Internet, especially when you're essentially throwing it into the viper pit of fandom culture. On the other hand, I don't always want to notice that I'm reading fanfiction when I'm really trying to read a Romance Novel. Especially when it gets distracting.
While there are virtually no limits to the material you might be willing to click the "heart" button for on AO3, I do expect the kind that makes it to print - or at least, wanders along through traditional publication channels - to have a little more finesse. If you're writing fanfiction alone, with none but your trusty laptop, beverage of choice, and maybe even one earnest beta reader to keep you company, then I'm more than happy to accept a certain level of soapy tropey-ness, or sloppy rewrites.
If your narrative has had to wind its way through multiple drafts, an agent, a team of editors, an art department, and more, and is still extruded on the other end consisting of naught but threadbare costuming thrown over well-known characters and as many in-jokes as you can fill a licensed merchandise popcorn bucket with, then I'm just expecting a little something... more.
The reason I'm bringing all of this potentially online-tension-flaming personal perspective up, is because I recently found myself reading not one, or two, but THREE novels with fanfiction ties in the space of about two weeks. I don't know if it's the Internet Age cultural clout traditional publishers are willing to admit popular fanfic authors carry in online spaces, or if it's just a whole type of person who got bored during the pandemic and decided to pull a Search & Change on all of the instances that the words "Legolas" and "Gimli" occurred in their most recent draft, but it's nearly become an identifiable subgenre in itself, especially in Romance Novel spheres.
After all, the first time I was even introduced to the first selection in this batch of new reads, it was straight-up billed in a TikTok as "That Reylo Fanfiction Everyone's Been Talking About." But not to get ahead of myself...
The sum total feeling I was left with after reading these books, is that - surprise, surprise - people are really talented. Sure, not all of these reads were right for me, but I still managed to finish every single one of them! They were cohesive and well-arranged novels, with enough new material padded out around the edges to give familiar characters a change of shape. The writing was sweet, and damn funny, and occupied different genre spheres than their original source material in a way that made them feel fresh and interesting, even when touting familiar stereotypes.
Do I think that just anyone with a robust Tumblr following and a cumulative 500K+ word count to their username should be given a publishing contract? No. (God, no.) But I am excited that both fandom culture and online authors are garnering new opportunities to shine, regardless of whether their audience in found through leaning on those multimedia ties, or reaching out to entirely new audiences.
But how were the books themselves?
Synopsis: When a third-year graduate student's well-intentioned lie to her best friend get the best of her, she finds herself impulsively lip-locked with - gasp - her university's hottest-slash-most-feared young professor. Soon enough, the two unlikely canoodlers find it mutually beneficial to launch an experiment of their own: can they successfully appease her bestie's matchmaking plans, and help him secure funding for his experiments, by pretending the two of them are a total item? Cue the awkward lap-sitting, sunscreen-spreading, Starbucks dates, and more.
Fanfiction ties: If Kylo Ren and Rey were the most infamous couple in your college's Biology department
Star Rating: Three
Confession time: I've never actually watched a Star Wars movie all the way through. Or even a little bit of the way through. (Yes, I recognize this is a cultural sin, so let me just add some fuel to the fire as a pyrotechnic distraction, and tell you I've never seen a Lord of the Rings film either. Leave your angry comments below.)
So it might make a lot of sense, as to why I felt confident I could go into this with a relatively fresh lens, unpolluted by feelings about anything other than that one John Oliver - Adam Driver video that did the rounds in late 2020.
The problem is, the major billing of this book - at least in online communities - is of its ties to the Star Wars fandom. The result is that these characters, their dynamics, still felt inextricably linked to their source material, in a way that was really distracting, even for someone who only knew the bare minimum.
The characters themselves still occupied archetypes you frequently find in fanfiction, especially pertaining to their famous counterparts: Kylo Ren's Adam DRIVER-inspired Dr. CARlsen, for instance, is physically huge, emotionally blunt, and has a tendency for his tightly-reined temper to get explosively violent, while Rey's Daisy Ridley-influenced Olive is naïve, dedicated to her goals, and funny enough, foreign (though Canadian, not British). The commonalities couldn't be more apparent if they put them on the damn cover... which they clearly did!
I'm sure that if I had better understanding of the Reylo-shipping fandom, you'd probably be able to slot other members of the cast into their appropriate places: for instance, I'm willing to bet that the conniving peer-slash-competitive-frenemy of the doctor's is probably a stand-in for someone from the franchise, too, just because his character type felt way too specific.
The humor expressed within what is a very functional, cute Romance Novel is also unmistakably Of The Internet: not only "the mitochondria is the power house of the cell," or "how the turn tables," but multiple references to fanfiction itself, like commentary on "fake dating" and "only one bed" tropes. Maybe because of the nature of publishing, or the fact that those kinds of jokes have been around for a while, made aspects of the authorial voice feel dated... but maybe that's the nature of traditional publishing, which takes a little more time than pushing "post."
Overall, it was funny and cute, but unable to be severed fully from its origin points, in a way that felt jarring to the narrative and occasionally frustrating to read. Still, the things that made it unique, were also its highlight: it was super cool to read a Romance Novel set in the field of academia, for instance, going as far to have some of the escalating action take place at a conference. Nerd romance!
Synopsis: So many Chosen Ones with so many prophecies to fulfill, but how many of those stories are brave enough to venture beyond the glowy fade-to-credits, and instead, tough out the actual challenge: getting suckered into the crown as a teenage monarch, in charge of uniting a freshly-freed kingdom? Worse yet, what about a clause worked into the magic, which states that every king requires a co-ruler... and if you're not newly wed by the time you turn eighteen in just a few months, you're cursed to disappear from existence completely! The only thing to do, of course, is pick which member of your cute adventuring coterie is most willing to get hitched... surely not your dark-haired best friend, who's stuck valiantly by your side throughout the whole journey...
Fanfiction ties: Arthur and Merlin (circa the BBC in 2010) appease my newfound slice-of-life Fantasy fixation
Star Rating: Three-point-five
Okay, I'll admit, when it comes to ties to popular fandom, this one's connection points are, by far, the most tenuous: while the Goodreads blurb only fesses up to being influenced by Arthurian legend, it's primarily a handful of GR reviews and gushing Tumblr posts that point to this project's links to the popular BBC Merlin series so many of my friends were obsessed with in high school. Still, there's no beating the appeal of a teen royal's wistful yearning for his dark-haired mage bestie. Certainly not when a definitely-fanfiction-reminiscent "Date or Die" clause has been installed so brazenly in the narrative.
Furthermore, unlike the two other novels in this list, this is a Young Adult romance, and an LGBT-friendly (if not -focused) one at that, both of which are very fanfiction-friendly audiences. There are familiar stereotypes and expected plot twists galore, packaged in teen-geared ways that don't make you question the slightly-silly world-building too much, or why these two teenage dunderheads can't manage to wise up to the other's intentions fast enough. That's right, the hallmark of fanfiction the world over: the "Miscommunication" trope!
But beyond those roots, I found this novel to be absolutely darling, if a little bit predictable and awkwardly paced in places. The cover itself pretty much tells you how the book is going to end, and it's a sweet, funny ride all the way down to the final chapter, without a ton of substance to slow your fun. And the LGBT representation is great too - which, again, you could probably guess from the cover, being that it carries the colors of the bisexual pride flag - including the preferences of multiple characters, and inclusion of a nonbinary character, as well.
Which annoyed me a little bit, because "Non Binary Character" and "LGBT Love Story" are two separate squares on the Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo card for this year, but I digress. I'll survive... and I don't even need to shoe-horn in an inexplicable soulmate clause to do it.
Synopsis: When one high society party princess' illegal impulse decision makes major news, her bankrolling stepdad cuts the funds. He sends her - and her stalwartly supportive sister - packing for the podunk seaside town from whence their tragically-deceased biological father came, in the hopes that she'll wise up, and learn the real value of a dollar. There's not much to see here in Westport... aside from the abs on that gruff widower sea captain, who just can't help taking a shine to her sequin-spangled optimism. Will this summer fling fade under the bright lights of a planned LA return? Or will she give up her perfectly styled persona, and embrace the hard, honest truth of being a sailor's second love?
Fanfiction ties: She's not just "A Little Bit" Alexis... she's, like, VERY
Star Rating: Four
This book is so unquestionably inspired by Schitt's Creek - and more specifically, the perfectly vapid-but-well-intentioned Alexis Rose, played to earnest perfection by Annie Murphy - that Tessa Bailey makes a point of thanking them in the Acknowledgements section at the back of the book!
But even if you didn't happen upon that intel in reader reviews, you'd probably have managed to piece it together of your own accord: a perfectly styled LA siren with a high-society, higher-price-tag lifestyle gets packed off to a small, rural town, to live in a property she's never heard of before, but gained in a surprise inheritance? She's got an even cuter personality than her wardrobe, and is drawn to a party like a moth to a flame, and is more than capable than starting one or two accidental fires. That's a little bit Alexis!
Parts of this character focus made the story a little distracting - take, for instance, my compulsion to mentally read all of her dialogue in Alexis Rose's signature vocal stylings - but it was far from the only fanfiction material present in the story.
Unfortunately, I found the final quarter of the book somewhat rushed and hectic, due to the amount of contrived conflict repeatedly, needlessly forcing our lovebirds apart. However, I didn't really mind it all that much: due to the rampant amounts of sex being had throughout the back half of the novel as a whole, at a certain point I was just thankful for any narrative actively transpiring at all.
Still, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time reading, despite the fact that I definitely skimmed a couple of sections (I HATE secondhand-embarrassment styles of comedy - which I recognize is also a hallmark of Schitt's Creek as a whole - and it can be more than a little painful in excess). However, it was hilarious, sweet, and as easy to digest as an episode of your favorite half-hour sitcom.
What's your take on the published-fanfiction trend? What titles come to mind for you? And what do you think deserves a little Rom-Com fan-fic-ing next? Let me know, in the comments below!
