One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London is such a feel-good, entertaining read with lovely romance but, most importantly, with wonderful character growth.
Bea Schumacher is a plus-size fashion blogger, one who used to be insecure about her weight and appearance. After a magical study abroad trip to Paris, she has come to accept her weight and gets inspired by the new-found confidence she has thanks to fashion.
As a semi-famous blogger and instagram influencer, it comes to no surprise that when she drunkenly writes a blog post criticising the popular reality TV show Main Squeeze’s lack of body diversity (which she is a fan of despite everything), she goes viral. With new found fame comes an offer from the Main Squeeze’s producer herself: Join the show as the main squeeze (think The Bachelor on… uh.. The Bachelor.)
After having her heart broken yet again by her long time married best friend, Bea decides to go for it. After all, this will be a massive boost to her career! She’s not in this for love, she’s in this for her career, to inspire plus-sized women, and to bring more diversity to television.
But then she’s getting dressed to the nines, meeting new friends, and getting surrounded by sexy men who are vying for her attention and love. And though she has already come to accept herself as a plus-sized woman, maybe she can also accept love from others.
Now, I don’t usually watch reality shows unless we’re talking about Masterchef – then yes I’m all for that. But I recently watched Love is Blind and enjoyed it immensely as one enjoys trashy TV, so I get why people could be addicted to reality shows that may not be 100%. As someone who works in marketing and communications, it was definitely interesting to read all the behind the scenes work that goes into a reality show which made this book extra enjoyable for me.
Throughout the book, we get to see tweets, emails, articles, and other media showings of people reacting to the show, and to Bea. It was really hard to read all the negative articles, ones that you know are based on real life and not just made up by the author. This happens on a daily basis to women all over the world, not just famous ones either. There are people out there who write these disgusting attacks and believe they’re in the right. The rape threat tweets? Particularly difficult. However the fanclub chats and podcast transcripts were highly entertaining and totally relatable as a person who tends to fangirl over things. Sometimes I found them more entertaining the story itself.
The mixed media format reminded me of Meg Cabot – and why I fell in love with her books in the first place! So it added a bit of nostalgia while I was reading.
The book doesn’t shy away from discussing real issues too, and the feminist themes in the book, the demand for more diversity, and the realistic portrayal of fat-shaming that plus-sized women have to go through really came out strong in this book.
While I had good feelings for who she ended up with eventually, I’m so happy Bea was able to meet all these amazing, sexy, funny men on the show who helped her realise that she deserved to be love and that Ray (her best friend) didn’t deserve her. I was cheering her on as she had fun on all these dates, kissed these men, and just had a good time.
But while the romance was great, the best part of the book was Bea herself. Reading about how she made mistakes, grow, and deal with her insecurities and come out on top was the reason why this book was so good.
TW for rape threats, fat-phobia, and cheating.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. I first published this review on Goodreads on 22 July 2020.
Tami Tales 