I've been a fan of Michael Ausiello since I started watching American TV series Glee and started following him to check for spoilers and other snippets about that show so it was difficult to read his announcement that his beloved husband Kit had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

This autobiography goes into that painful time but it also gives some insight into a career which is as filled with humour and happiness as it is with sadness and pain.
The blurb for this book sums it up perfectly, you will howl with laughter, you will sob at the tragedy of losing the love of your life over such a short space of time.

I overall enjoyed this memoir!  The author has a clear voice that is easily relatable to as someone you would be friends with in your life.  It made the work easy to read, and relate to moments in his experiences.  The only thing about the book that, for lack of better word, annoyed me was that early on we are told about Kit's infidelity.  It caused me to be distracted about his true character.  I wish that would have been revealed torwards the end of the book.

One of the best books I've laughed and cried through this year.  So stunningly written, as he mines the years of love they shared, the diagnosis and the final year as they faced cancer together.  Funny, fierce, and heartwrenching all at once...yet still carries a positive and hopeful outlook.  A very sweet and loving book told in an honest and humorous manner, as it was lived.  Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria Books, and the author Michael Ausiello for providing me with a Kindle ARC for review.

Michael Ausiello and his love of television have been a part of my life since his "Ask Ausiello" days when I would often find myself scouring the internet looking for ways to spoil all the shows that I was currently obsessed with. I really loved Ausiello's wit and our shared love of anything "Gilmore Girls" was an instant (if one-sided) bond between the two of us. 

I remember seeing something on social media about Michael losing his partner to cancer, and it was incredibly sad. In reading this memoir, both about Michael and Kit's relationship journey and Kit's cancer experience, I was again struck with how Michael Ausiello's writing had the ability to transport me right into their story. This book was clearly a work of love. And a love story this is; a true love story. There is no traditional happy ending, the main characters have the same flaws that every other couple has., they deal with the same problems that every other couple has to deal with. Overall, this was a very real portrait of what love and marriage are about. Two people meet, sometimes really crappy things happen, everyone tries to deal with that as best they can.  

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Ausiello's writing. It was clear, witty, and reverent. I very much enjoyed this book! 

Thanks to Atria Books for the ARC via NetGalley!

"It's not the years in your life that matter. It's the life in your years.", written by BBC journalist Helen Fawkes, who died this June of recurring ovarian cancer aged 45, in her last fb entry.

Thanks to Atria Books for the egalley. This was brutal.

Beautiful. Hysterical. Gut-wrenching. Sweet. Heartbreaking. Stunning.

I'd rate this 4.5 stars.

t has been said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times but expecting a different result. Did I really believe I could read Michael Ausiello's lovely, bittersweet memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, a book of which its editor said, "You'll cackle; you'll sob," and not be a sobbing mess when it was done? I mean, I cry watching the car commercial where the little boy gets a dog, and then when he's grown up and goes to college, the dog is old. 

Color me insane, I guess. Spoiler alert: while I while I didn't sob through the entire book, I was pretty emotional.

Michael Ausiello is one of my favorite go-to sources for television-related gossip and information. I've been following him since he wrote for Entertainment Weekly and TVGuide.com, and am an avid fan of the site he founded, TVLine.com. In 2001, when he met Christopher "Kit" Cowan at a benefit, he was smitten instantaneously, both because of Kit's good looks and the easy banter they quickly fell into.

Their relationship took off, but like all relationships, dealt with some rough spots along the way. Some challenges were common—dealing with infidelity, financial independence, Kit's marijuana habit, Michael's emotional insecurities—and some were a little less so: Michael's, umm, obsession with all things Smurf, and Kit's prodigious collection of sex toys. But even through the rough patches, both realized how much happier they were together, and how much they truly were two halves of a whole, along with their long-suffering cat, Mister Scooch.

In 2014, in the middle of their 13th year together, Kit was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer. For Michael, Kit's illness not only brought him face-to-face with the threat of losing the love of his life, but it reminded him of losing both of his parents to cancer when he was younger. But Michael took on the role of Kit's caregiver as fully as he did every interview with a celebrity, every column he wrote, every guest appearance he got to make on a television series.

Although the two had eschewed marriage in the past (while supporting the right of everyone to marry the person they love), they got married just before Kit's first chemo appointment. This allowed Michael to be fully engaged in every aspect of Kit's treatment and care. And while Kit faced his bleak prognosis with the same good humor he approached every day, he never seemed to get the upper hand on his cancer, and after a tough battle, he passed away in February 2015.

While Spoiler Alert is a chronicle of Kit's fight with cancer, and how he and Michael faced down the disease and the setbacks together, this book is more than just a sad account of a life nearing its end. This is also a story of a relationship, a love affair, from start to finish, with the funny and sweet moments, the challenges and the anxieties, and all of the emotion and beauty of two people who truly gave each other their whole heart, their humor, and their love.

This certainly was a book that hit me hard emotionally, and made me want to hold my own husband and my own loved ones a little bit closer as soon as I finished reading it. (Plus I couldn't see while reading the last chapter I was crying so hard.) But it was also a book that made me laugh, made me recognize myself and my own relationship in certain anecdotes Michael shared, and made me thankful that he was willing to share his relationship with Kit with us, although I'm sorry this is why he did.

NetGalley and Atria Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies will probably ruin your life, but that's no reason not to read it. As a fan of Michael Ausiello's work at various pop culture properties (TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, TVLine), I'll be honest and admit that I didn't read the description of the book before picking it up - enticed enough by the just author's name. Apparently, I didn't even read the full title, which ends with: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words. The book caught me off guard, but in the best way possible. I was half expecting another fabulous, funny, yet insightful, review of one of my favorite TV shows - instead what I got was a heartwarming, heartbreaking, funny and flawless story of love and loss, and yes, a few other four letter words...

This is a story about death. We should be up front about that, in case you also decided to skip the description and even title of the book. It's a story about the death of a loved one, but it does not read miserable like a funeral, it reads like the best celebration of life. Tracing their 14-year relationship to its terminal end, Ausiello makes you fall in love with his partner Kit, deeper and deeper with every sarcastic remark and use of the c-word.

In Spoiler Alert, Ausiello's writing is masterful. The story's stars are dimensional and complex and he never shies away from the flaws of all involved, even his dearly departed. The writing is tight and the story moves at a satisfying pace, oscillating between the start of Michael & Kit's relationship and its devastating end. It's a love story better than The Notebook and a cancer story better than The Fault in Our Stars, with a healthy dash of pop culture references true to the Ausiello brand.

Spoiler Alert is complex, compelling, and important - and you won't regret picking it up, even when it has you sobbing. If I could "Ask Ausiello" one thing, it would be that this not be his final step outside of the world of entertainment news.

I'm so glad I had the opportunity to read this book. I've always admired Ausiello for his work, but now I do even more. It was very interesting to know more about his personal life. I remember reading an article he wrote about his husband a while ago and seeing many celebs giving them support, but I didn't know exactly how bad it was until now. 

Ausiello basically interviewed all my favorite actors (and btw, we share the same love for Keri Russell and Lauren Graham). He's always the first one to post news about my favorite shows. He's like a hero. He's such a tease, but we know we can trust him. 

When I heard the news about this book, I just knew I had to read it. I think he did a great job! I'm sure it was much more complicated than writing articles about tv shows, because in this case it's all real, sad and very close to him. But still, he was able to tell the story in the most gracious way possible. If Kit could read it, I'm sure he would be very proud. 

It's not a book for the weak of heart. If you don't like to read about health issues, doctors, treatments and death, you better stay away from this one. But on the other hand, it's a great book for those who know the feeling of losing someone you love so much, feeling helpless, but still doing the best you can with the time you have together. I think their story can bring some kind of comfort to those who go through similar situations. 

Personally, I usually avoid books when I know people are going to die. We always want happy endings, right? But in this case, maybe because it's real, I really wanted to know. Life isn't always perfect. To be honest, it's usually very unfair. Kit deserved so much better, but I'm glad he and Ausiello had the chance to know each other and enjoy some great years together.

Hold onto your tissues, folks, you’re in for a teary read. Having been a fan of Michael (Mike) Ausiello for years, I was glad to have the chance to dive into his memoir on “love, loss, and other four-letter words.” For those who are familiar with Ausiello from his work with TVGuide or his own site TVLine, this book takes a pretty stark turn from memoirs like Andy Cohen’s that spend lots of space talking about interactions with celebrity. 

While we do hear about meetings with Kristen Bell and Keri Russell (of whom Mike and I are both fans), this memoir instead focuses on the more universal themes of love, relationships, illness, and death. Mike opens up to readers and shares about the journey he takes with his partner, Christopher “Kit” Cowan, who suffers from a rare form of cancer and “spoiler alert” passes away. 

We know the outcome of the book from the title, but what unfolds is a funny, sad, loving story about the way in which partners can grow and stretch together. It brings perspective to the things in life that really matter. While certainly not a light read, there are moments of joy and transcendence within, and it serves a beautiful testament to a life well-lived and a life still being lived well.