Getting spoiled is no fun, but then neither is being coy, trying to dance around talking about a story without actually talking about it. Some people go out of their way to try to spoil things for people either because it gives them a kick to ruin someone’s day or just because they’re tired of people getting mad at them for having what they saw as an interesting conversation about something they like. They’ll often come back citing opinions that spoilers don’t actually make you enjoy things any less. But I think that’s up to every person to decide for themselves and it isn’t equally true of everything.

So the problem isn’t spoilers or avoiding them. The problem is communicating them. No one wants to be surprised by them or to live in fear of them or to walk a tightrope trying to avoid giving them. But a big red “Spoiler Warning” in front of everything feels silly, and it can be difficult to read from social expectations alone. After all, we’re used to “reviews” which are targeted at people trying to decide whether to buy something. To the extent that the articles on this site are reviews at all, they aren’t that kind of review. So consider yourself warned:

Articles on this site will almost certainly contain spoilers for their primary subjects. Sometimes they’re appropriate for someone who hasn’t yet read the book in question, sometimes not, but once you click on an article, all bets are off. I won’t call out again when I’m about to spoil something. That said, I will try to avoid a few things. I won’t spoil anything on the main page. You shouldn’t be spoiled about a book just by reading the summary of an article. Also, if I mention some other work in an article, I’ll try to avoid specific spoilers about that other thing without warning.

Bottom line: there are spoilers on this site. There have to be in order to have a real discussion about anything. But they shouldn’t take you by surprise.