One to watch by Kate Stayman-London

A book for yoy if you are a fan of reality tv or blogging.

An alright book the story is a bit predictable.

If you are looking for a proper ‘romcom’ this book can only be termed this in the loosest way.

However It’s a very easy read and there are quite a few twist and turners and some parts are quite funny.

I’m not really sure who this book is aimed at as it’s neither very modern or middle of the road . A bit disappointing.

2.5/5

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED this book!! It is not something that I'd normally pick out, but I'm so glad that I did. A lovely twisty, turny, happy & sad book!! I loved the characters & really felt Bea's difficulties trying to work out who was the best man for her. Brilliant!!

BOOK REVIEW
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'One To Watch' tells the tale of a plus-size fashion blogger, Bea, who decides to star in a reality television series. The show, called Main Squeeze, is huge in America; a number of men flirt and compete to win Bea's heart.
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I liked the character of Bea, although sometimes found her a little too moody and diva-like to totally connect. The story is rather predictable (..name me a romcom that isnt!), but Kate Stayman-London writes the story in a unique way, through Bea's eyes, but also showing text conversations, internet articles and social media threads of viewers. We get a good feel for the mood of those who are watching (and living!) Main Squeeze.
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It's a nice read, promoting diversity, and definitely one to check out if you like a modern day fairytale.
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Rosie rates: 3/5 (This ebook was a gift from @netgalley. Views my own.)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#budleighbooks #instabooks #bookstagram #netgalley #onetowatch #katestaymanlondon #budleighbookworm #romcom #fictionfan #instareads #diversifyyourbookshelf #plussizefashion #moderndayfairytale

I loved this book and just had to keep reading and see if the lovely Bea got her happy ending. Very topical, based around social media and dating shows as well as prejudices against plus sized girls entering such a world. Many moments did make me laugh out loud and I felt I was backing her for it all to work out. Recommended read and I do think it would make a great chick flick movie.
Thanks to #NetGalley for a preview of this book for an honest review #OneToWatch

I loved the concept of this book. So funny and life affirming. Full of twists and turns that just left me not wanting to put this book down. An insightful and enjoyable read.

A well crafted book and a light, easy read for fans of the reality era. It was lovely to read about a plus sized protagonist thriving.
All in all a great read, thanks netgalley for the ARC.

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did to be honest.
Plus size looking for love on reality tv Bea navigates this world brilliantly.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy of One To Watch in exchange for an honest review.
Although I have never really been a huge fan of reality TV and programmes like The Bachelorette, I was really excited to read this book. As someone who is plus sized herself, I was really interested to see how the topic was handled in this premise. In my opinion it was was handled really well. Although some of the troll comments were upsetting and difficult to read, they were also sadly very accurate. I loved how Bea didn’t let them stop her though. She was clearly hurt by the comments but would not let them stop her getting what she wanted out of life. It was also very refreshing to have a plus sized character who was so heavily involved in the fashion industry. Yes, fat girls wear clothes too and why shouldn’t they have opinions on them.
Kate Stayman-London did a fantastic job of writing a diverse story full of lovable and hate-able characters. I am so glad that Bea got everything she wanted from life. I will definitely be looking out for future books by this author.

This is an absolutely perfect plus-size Bachelorette adventure through body acceptance, romantic reality shows and the glamour of fashion capital Paris. The writing is smart and the little conversation vignettes break-up the story and illustrate the social impact of reality television. Highly recommend.

I rarely reread books, but I think this is one I’d reread. I finished a couple days ago and still am thinking about the characters. Great story! I’d like to be Bea’s friend.

The premise of this story was great. Made up of emails and social media, this story follows Bea Schumacher who is a plus size blogger. Throughout the book, Bea is searching for her own love story, and to try and eliminate the negative ways in which plus size is seen as a negative.
Bea has been in love with Ray, a friend of hers for as long as she can remember. When she finds herself on a reality show called 'Main Squeeze' following an incident with Ray, the story really gathers speed.

Although this was in fact an enjoyable, light hearted read, I did find it somewhat lacking in grasping my attention fully. However, I did find myself really warming to Bea as a character and was rooting for her to find her own happily ever after.

I liked the way this book was written, it was made up of emails and social media along with the story of Bea Schumacher who is a “plus size” blogger. The story follows Bea on her quest to find true love and to stop “plus size” people being marginalised in everyday society and social media. She’s been in love with her friend Ray for as long as she remember and an incident with him leads her to being invited onto a reality show called “Main Squeeze” which is based on “The Bachelorette”, a reality show in America I believe.. She agrees, on the basis that the show has more body diversity and not the stick thin glamorous people that usually inhabit these kinds of shows. We then follow Bea on her journey through this show trying to find true love. I liked Bea and I liked the premise of the story but for some reason I found it a bit hard going and it just didn’t gel with me. Saying that I did enjoy it and I really wanted Bea to find love and happiness..

This was such a refreshing, fun read! One to Watch focuses on plus size blogger and fashion fan Bea, who has been in love with her best friend since forever. After a chance article about a reality TV show that sounds similar to The Bachelor, goes viral, Bea is invited to take part on the next season.

The book was really fun and engaging and tapped into that serial feel of 'who's she going to connect with next', 'who's going to be out?' and whilst I guessed who would be the love interest from the beginning, I didn't anticipate the relationships with the other guys and how wonderfully complex and thoughtful they would be.

The book is also told with text messages and emails and a variety of different people watching the show sharing their thoughts, including a work pool guessing who's going to win and a pair of podcasters. These were really fun excerpts within the book which gave the whole thing more of a 'real' feel, instead of just focusing on Bea's thoughts.

It would be silly to miss out the importance of diversity here - Bea makes a point of it with the TV show and it's relevant in the book too. It's so nice to see a plus size heroine! She's loveable and wonderful and whilst she's occasionally fierce fashionista and occasionally a little bit more worried about how she's presented, Bea shows you don't have to be one thing. You can love yourself and also doubt yourself, you can love fashion but also feel excluded from it. She also had a wonderful best friend and I loved their relationship.

The only thing I wasn't sure on sometimes was how everyone declared their feelings to each other all the time, but I don't watch a lot of reality TV and haven't watched Love Island/The Bachelor so I'm guessing it was on point for that style!

A very fun read with some important themes. Will absolutely recommend!

I wish I had gelled with this book more but unfortunately I didn't find it an enjoyable read.

This was marketed as a fat positive book, but I found countless passages of fatphobia that made for very uncomfortable reading.

I feel it was quite a bit too long, and the Twitter content in this book didn't feel very necessary in regard to the story.

Had it been more focused on the reality show aspect of this book, I would have enjoyed it a lot more as I really liked that aspect of the story. But quite a bit of its content was a let down for me.

3.5 stars

After seeing this book everywhere, I gave in and read it. I usually don’t watch any tv program like the Bachelorette and this book was very similar to it.
I was all in for Bea to find her love match and I really enjoyed her arc growth in this book, she was reliable and flawed, full of insecurities but down to earth as well.
Saying that, I wasn’t sold on the love story though. I really didn’t feel the chemistry or attraction between them, it looked more like a real good friendship and that’s it.
Overall it’s a great story and a must read romance.

This book deserves all of the stars.

I don’t even know what to say. It was awesome and I loved it. A lot.

The story follows Bea, a plus-size fashion blogger, as she is cast to feature on the reality TV show Main Squeeze (basically The Bachelor/Bachelorette) following a rant on her blog about the lack of diversity and representation on the show that goes viral. Having recently been hurt in love, she is hesitant to meet 25 potential suitors but finally agrees, since it will give a boost to her career and show plus-size women that they too deserve love, even if hers is fake. That is until she catches feelings and everything gets fun and complicated, of course.

The story itself is great, it’s like binge-watching your favorite guilty pleasure reality TV, but the way it’s told adds so much to it. As well as following Bea, we get to see magazine articles, tweets, text messages or blog posts of the audience’s thoughts on the show as the episodes air. This multi-media format made for such a well-rounded story, whoever came up with that idea is a genius.

Also, I adored every single character; from Bea to her step father or Gwen and Linus, but I must say I’m seriously in love with Sam, what do I have to do to go on a Disneyland date with him? Most importantly, I didn’t just adore them, I connected with them and their personal issues, flaws and insecurities, which is the mark of a great story. Also, the representation in this book is chef’s kiss, not only because Bea is plus-size, but there’s queer, asexual, a kid who’s gender nonconforming, etc and it’s all beautifully done.

I loved following Bea on her journey and figuring things out with her. I mean, who has never thought “I’ll put off dating until I lose some weight” or “it’s impossible for someone like him to love someone like me”? A lot of Bea’s insecurities hit home with me and I loved the message of body positivity and self-love that this book gives.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Two Roads (John Murray Press) for a digital review copy in exchange of an honest and voluntary review.

What. A. Disappointment! The hypocrisy in this was bothersome. The reader is mis-sold the premise of a curvaceous and confident plus-size blogger and in reality we receive a self-negating, immoral and tempestuous protagonist in which vilifies any other human that dares to be a smaller dress size than her. (Seriously, let’s celebrate ALL sizes).

The writing is littered with news headlines, blog entries, food receipts, emails, texts- none of which contributed anything to the coherence of the storyline- hence denying any semblance of a fluid narrative.

London tries to masquerade this novel as ‘body-positive’ but proceeds to write reams of pages (i.e- the whole book) of Bea frequently lamenting her weight. In addition to this, she criticises everything in sight. Nothing is safe from her litigation. (Including high bar-stools which she can’t possibly sit on as she is plus sized). Quite clearly she is insecure and paranoid. So, when suffering from poor self-image and distinctly lacking confidence. What do you do? That’s right! Sign yourself up to a dating show whereby the potential suitors are completing boring, vain creatures, lacking any trace of personality. As a result, I was nonplussed about the events that followed.

This had the potential to be great, but ultimately it was a poor representation of plus sized women.

Bea Schumacher has a lot to be happy about in life: great friends, a loving family, a very successful fashion blog. However she has been in love with her friend Ray for years and is left heartbroken when a night of passion results in him giving her the cold shoulder. While watching TV dating show Main Squeeze (Pretty much The Bachelor), she goes on a rant about the show on social media, which goes viral. Fast forward a few months later and she's surprised to hear from the show, who want to shake things up and cast her as the main squeeze for the next series! Bea is unsure, given that she would be the first plus sized contestant and all that would come with that. Not to mention she's still not over Ray. But she decides to give it a go, as it would be an amazing opportunity for her career. Can Bea find 'The One'? Or will her feelings for Ray get in her way?

I really enjoyed reading this book, I've never seen The Bachelor but I enjoy Love Island and this was a nice substitution for the lack of trashy dating shows currently on TV! There's plenty of twists and turns, you're constantly left guessing about how things will end and what the motivations are for all the male contestants and the producers of the TV show. You get really invested in the story! The story is told in the traditional way but there's also little snippets between chapters of blog posts, magazine articles, podcast transcriptions, Slack chats, Tweets etc which is a really good way of incorporating the opinions of the general public watching the TV, it's cleverly done as well as being pulling in part of modern life which books often shy away from.

There has been some criticism about the book and the way Bea being plus sized is handled. Bea often doubts the men's intentions and worries about whether they fancy her. Some reviews are unhappy that Bea seems to have the general attitude of 'How could they possibly fancy someone fat like me?', especially as nearly all the men are incredibly good looking. But to be honest, I felt like this was realistic. I know it can be tiring for that to be a stereotype for fat characters to think like this but for this storyline, it works. It shows firstly how Bea has this deep down thought about herself due to how society has treated her and fat people. As well as the fact that it plays into what happens with her and Ray. But also it shows how being in a show like this really gets into your head and starts to make you second guess things. Bea is confident in her body (she's a fashion blogger after all!) but in this situation she's constantly double guessing what the men are thinking and also acutely aware of some of the situations the producers are putting her in (like the bathing suits and the belly dancing). She's scared of being vulnerable and she's scared of feeding the trolls online. The book has lots of diverse characters but there are some things that could be tweaked on that. There are plenty of BIPOC characters but I felt like bar that being mentioned at the beginning when being introduced to the character, it didn't really come up much when Bea interacted with these characters. Not that you need to be hit over the head with it with very heavy descriptions but it still would have been nice to have some descriptions.

Overall it's a fun read, an entertaining rom com. I think it would possibly be a good film!

I was looking forward to reading this book after a lot of very positive reviews on soxial media. Overall I enjoyed the story and it was well written however it wasn't a book I couldn't put down.

Really enjoyed this book - attracted by the blurb but it’s got so many more layers that I was expecting. Love, relationships, social media, reality TV, personal motivations, manipulation, body image, fatism...

I absolutely adored Bea. What a great protagonist. I felt for her in the multiple scenarios that she faced. Everyone needs a bestie like Marin who tells it like it is! Often we don’t want to hear it...

Having loved TV shows like The Batchelor in the past, and recently watched Love at First Sight on Netflix (don’t turn your nose up, it was at the start of Lockdown!) it was interesting to see the other side and how things can be worked to create that you want to project.

A really interesting read - and would make a great book club read.
Wasn’t expecting this to be a 5* read - just a different perspective from not-your-standard heroine, but got so much more! Still thinking about this book several days later!!!