“Good morning book lovers” is the greeting I expected from my twitter and Instagram feeds today – apparently the world of YA literature had something else in store for us today.

This was expertly expressed by @katelovescolour:

https://twitter.com/Katelovescolour/status/1029632430788018176

Yep. You read it correctly: Dick Soap.

More to the point, it’s YA novel inspired Dick Soap and it’s blue.

The curious, and apparently sparkly, item was included in an illyrian (S.J.Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series) themed book box distributed this month.

It’s brought to us by https://www.instagram.com/bookishandstuff/ who posted the following warning on #bookstagram for recipients of the box yesterday:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmcQ42kFYwi/?taken-by=bookishandstuff

In fairness to the box’s creators the box has been consistently marketed as 18+throughout its campaign and many recipients were very happy with the contents of their boxes (check out their story for full unboxings). Plus it’s made for some hilarious tweets.

https://twitter.com/margotwood/status/1029562151902404611

Yep, mine too! Jenna Guillaume’s journey of discovery mirrored my own twitter search on this…

Even the fabulous J Kristoff (Author of ‘The Nevernight Chronicle’ series and co-author of the Illumnae series) weighed in with his thoughts…

Clearly this is a widespread concern:

One additional controversy out of the #soapgate discussion (nice job on the hashtag by the way tweeters!) is the issue of the accompanying literature: “A Court of Smut and Wingspans.” Commenters were quick to point out that this fanfic is (1) not something that should be sold at all and (2) In danger of seriously breaking copyright laws.

It’ll be interesting to see if Bloomsbury come back with a response.

In the meantime pull up a chair, grab some popcorn and scroll through your social feeds – it’s a very entertaining read.