A love affair with a pop star gone horribly wrong that puts #MeToo centre stage

YOU may have noticed a recent trend in fan fiction-inspired stories of love affairs with pop stars.

- Maddy Mussen

Well, one pop star: boyish good looks, a career that started in their teens or via a boyband, androgynous dressing and, above all, an inconceivable amount of fame.

The most notable recent example of this is The Idea of You, the 2017 book by Robinne Lee that was turned into a major film with Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine earlier this year.

As much as Lee is sick of the association now, it's well known that Galitzine's character was modelled on pop superstar and former One Direction member Harry Styles.

It all feels part of a wider trend of former fangirls, once relegated toonline channels such as Wattpad and Archive of Our Own, now being old enough to become published authors (or playwrights, see: Fangirls, the new play at the Lyric Theatre where a boy band singer called Harry is kidnapped by his own fans).

Now we have Gold Rush, the debut novel by Millennial Love author and Independent columnist Olivia Petter. But Gold Rush is no work of giddy fan fiction, it is a cautionary tale. Its protagonist, Rose, is introduced to her own Harry Styles-type pop star through her job in the publishing world. Rose works in the press office of magazine publishing giant Firehouse, a proxy for Condé Nast, where Petter herself once worked. Like many young adult fiction (or fan fiction) protagonists, Rose is awkward, just the right amount of snarky, but still pretty and slim enough to conform to traditional beauty standards. The publishing world’s Bella Swan, if you will.