Following Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade returns with another utterly charming romantic comedy about a devil-may-care actor—who actually cares more than anyone knows—and the no-nonsense woman hired to keep him in line.
Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, God of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he’s dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling.
Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit.
When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all.
All the Feels is a follow-up/companion to last year’s Spoiler Alert. Not a sequel exactly, since the timelines are somewhat concurrent, but a look at different characters in the same world, with some overlap. In both books, the framing is the massively popular TV series Gods of the Gates, a multi-season, big budget production based on a very popular but unfinished book series, which seems to have gone decidedly off the rails once the storyline moved passed the published books. Remind you of anything yet?
In All the Feels, we start with a bang as lead actor Alex Woodroe, who plays Cupid on the show, is being severely reprimanded by the showrunner after he’s arrested in a bar fight in Spain as production on the final season is wrapping up. Alex is impulsive and known for his outrageous behavior, but drunken brawls are not typical for him. Still, the production is out of patience and taking no chances, so they assign him a minder — someone to shadow him everywhere, be with him at all times, and make sure he does not step a toe out of line until the new season airs.
His assigned minder? Lauren Clegg, the (dickish) showrunner’s cousin, who’s currently assessing her own next career move after burning out on ER trauma. Lauren is not your standard beauty — she’s (maybe) five feet tall, very round, with a crooked nose (thanks to an out-of-control ER patient) and an assymetrical face. Her cruel cousin refers to her off-handedly as ridiculous and ugly, but in Alex’s view, she’s birdlike, reminding him of a winter wren. Which, for reference, looks like this:
Alex, described by a loving castmate as a “delightful asshole”, is outraged by being assigned a nanny — but beyond the external assholery, he’s actually a very good guy. So, while he delights in trying to get a reaction out of “Nanny Clegg”, he also treats her with respect and kindness, especially once they arrive back in LA and she takes up residence in the guest house on his estate.
Alex himself is a complex character. His outgoing, full-speed-ahead, screw-the-consequences persona is cover for a man who carries deep guilt over family history and who is willing to put everything on the line to defend people in need, even if it means possibly torpedoing the career he fought so hard for. His ADHD makes him hard for others to control, and while he has coping strategies that work well for him, his impulse control challenges cause him trouble again and again.
As we get to know Lauren, we see how she’s internalized other people’s view of her, even her own family’s. She’s dependable, but not as important as everyone else — this is\the lesson she’s learned over the years, and she dreads having others (including Alex) come to her defense at their own expense. She knows that the world sees her as unattractive (and that awful people seem to have no qualms about saying so to her face), and she’s rather just put up walls and remove herself emotionally that have anyone else take risks on her behalf.
As Alex and Lauren spend time together, they create a bubble of two, moving beyond resentment and impatience into trust and friendship, and finally acknowledging a deep attraction too. Their growing feelings for one another are challenged by the outside world and the demands of Alex’s career — but they’re also challenged by their own baggage and their deeply ingrained defense mechanisms. When hurt and self-sacrifice threaten their new-found happiness, they each find that they need to dig deep, work on themselves, and learn to get out of their own way if they’re to have a future.
This is absolutely an opposites-attract fairy tale. Alex is a gorgeous movie star, yet the plain woman with an unassuming personality who does not meet standard beauty ideals is the one who steals his heart. It certainly strains belief, but accepting the wish-fulfillment elements, All the Feels is quite a lovely and engaging read.
In Spoiler Alert, we learn much more about Gods of the Gates, which is pretty delightful in its own way. Here, we hear more about the problematic nature of the final season and why it causes Alex in particular so much grief. We also spend more time with some of the castmates introduced in the first book, via group text chats and in person, and they’re a treat.
All the Feels also includes some of the fanfiction elements introduced in Spoiler Alert — to a lesser extent, but in a way that’s so Alex and so outrageous, and it made me really laugh.
I did really enjoy All the Feels, but as I mentioned, there’s a wish-fulfillment feel to the story that sometimes made me take a step back and squint at the book. Could this relationship work in real life? Well, maybe… but put this story together with the main relationship in Spoiler Alert, and it becomes a little harder to embrace the idea that two gorgeous and successful leading men, who also happen to be best friends, would fall for two women who — to be clear — are absolutely lovely and delightful, but who do not meet Hollywood beauty standards by a long shot.
The last third of the book includes very graphic sex scenes, so if you prefer your romance on the implied rather than explicit side, you might want to be aware of this before going in. Explicit isn’t usually my jam when it comes to my reading choices, but I was invested enough in the characters that I wasn’t thrown off too much by these scenes (and anyway, the characters are so clearly joyful together that it’s hard not to be happy for them, no matter how graphically engaged they are.)
All the Feels could work as a stand-alone — there’s enough context provided to make the key elements of the show and its issues understandable — but I’d recommend starting with Spoiler Alert to get the full picture. Also, Alex and Lauren’s story happens in the background in Spoiler Alert, so it’s fun to see pieces of it unfolding through other characters’ eyes before reading their story on its own.
All in all, I recommend both of these books. All the Feels features memorable characters, snappy dialogue, a moving (if improbable) love story, and a fairy tale ending. It’s a feel-good book that, for all its unlikely elements (not just the central relationship, but also some of the pieces related to Alex’s career), will make you smile.
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Bookshelf Fantasies 