For the Fans

Throughout the novel, Avi and Kyran repeatedly use humor, hostility, competition, and performance to communicate feelings they struggle to express directly. Choose two or three of these indirect forms of communication and discuss one theme that connects these moments.

After researching the Boston Archdiocese abuse crisis, analyze how For the Fans uses or departs from that historical context in constructing the Harbor family’s experience. Discuss what responsibilities or limitations arise when a fictional romance novel incorporates trauma resembling documented historical events.

Does Tom Harbor’s characterization invite readers to forgive him, understand him, hold him accountable, or some combination of the three? Analyze how the novel handles the difference between character development and redemption.

Kyran frequently behaves in ways that hurt Avi even when readers have access to circumstances that help explain his behavior. How does the novel negotiate the distinction between explaining a character’s harmful actions and excusing them?

Identify and discuss one internal and one external conflict that Avi faces in the text. How do the resolutions of these conflicts (or lack thereof) cause him to change?

Avi and Kyran begin the novel as stepbrothers who actively dislike one another. How does the novel use the blended-family relationship to complicate conventional enemies-to-lovers and forbidden-romance tropes? Would the central conflict function differently if the characters had no familial connection?

The novel places its central romance within several communities with their own expectations: family, college athletics, religion, friendship groups, and online audiences. Which community exerts the greatest influence over Avi’s or Kyran’s choices, and how does the novel complicate the idea of “belonging” to a community?

If you have read Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry (2019), compare how For the Fans and Heated Rivalry use conventions of MM sports romance. How does each novel approach secrecy, athletic identity, masculinity, and the relationship between private intimacy and public identity? Specifically, where does For the Fans reinforce or subvert expectations established by Reid’s novel?