Main Character Energy is a must read for people learning to love and take chances on themselves.
Poppy is very unlikeable at the start however this is done purposefully and it was really interesting to observe Poppy’s evolution and character growth —in a beautiful setting with a sweet slow burn love story.

I loved the plot and the way the book is written is very readable from the first page until the end. I am grateful for this book as for the long time I was not able to read the whole book and this was a bliss to read. I relate to main character in many ways so maybe that was the reason also that it catched my full attention. Brilliant read!

Main Character Energy shows promise, but ultimately falls short of being a truly inspiring read. While the journey of self-discovery has its heartwarming moments, the narrative lacks enough depth or struggle to make her transformation feel earned. Readers looking for an uplifting page-turner may leave this memoir feeling unmoved. With mediocre writing and a plot that drags in places, the book merits 3.6 stars at best.This story could have benefited from sharper storytelling and a little more narrative tension to make the payoff more impactful. As it stands, Main Character Energy is a moderately charming yet mostly forgettable tale.

Pleasant, wholesome easy read, if slightly unbelievable... I did guess the 'twist' very early on. However its a nice reading experience

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC of Main Character Energy.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It's Poppy's dream to publish her own book. But it doesn't seem to work. And she struggles with that. And the fact that her brother is one of the most cherished writers ever doesn't help her.
But then her aunt dies and she gets the chance of her life... Moving away and starting something new. And maybe even finish a book that might or might not get published. But only if she's brave enough to make that step in her life.

It was nice to watch the MC’s journey throughout this, a good little book to escape with.

A predictable kind of plot, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline Eternal.
3/5 ⭐️

I enjoyed the sentiment behind this but my first was that maybe the fact she had over 400 rejections might have meant something!

I enjoyed reading about Poppys journey and how she navigated life and relationships. A little predictable at times but a fun easy read!

Warm, cosy, enjoy the journey kind of reads. I really did enjoy this, so much so I read it slowly knowing full well I could read it in one sitting but I wanted to enjoy Poppy's journey. The big surprise twist at the end, I suspected all along, but that just added to the warmth and excitement I got reading this.

Thank you to Jamie Varon for letting me have an ARC copy of Main Character Energy to review. I started Main Character Energy with high hopes, the lure of the premise seemed perfect about an aspiring writer overcoming her fears and doubts to write her book and discover her main character energy whilst living in the south of France. It kicks starts with a bang, but I found the fizzle gone by the middle.

I started off loving Poppy’s character with dynamic being very flawed and low personal/body image confidence. She’s got tons of baggage to check for the duration of the story and I settled to read along ready for her to find her strengths, make mistakes, and her Character arc to bring her to the realisation of how to face her fears and overcome her doubts. But I felt she misplaced the map and conveniently ignored some pretty big issues back in the real world. If you default on paying your bills, rent, or student loans, I am pretty sure some consequences will knock on the door sooner or later (especially after six months) without a hint of how its resolved so she can get on with writing her book and immersing herself into creating a life at the writing retreat.

Oliver’s potential upon Poppy’s arrival in France had me hoping for some serious enemies-to-lovers trope elements to nicely compliment Poppy’s character arc of rediscovering her confidence and overcoming imposter syndrome. Oliver’s character quickly felt very 2-dimensional as a person. He didn’t bring the conflict element I expected and there was romance whiplash going on with this pair that made me question his motive for the attraction to Poppy.

The plot premise is a brilliant concept with plenty of meaty bumps in the road that should have made this amazing summer read. I think this book needed to have more chapters to do the story it was trying to tell justice. The story started to feel rushed and cramped after reaching the midpoint. The chemistry between Oliver and Poppy lost its sizzle. Reading the last half of the book is an odd mixture of writing telling the story and showing it. I still enjoyed the story and all the components of the plot towards the ending, but the writing lost its punch for me and resolved everything too neatly and quickly.

Poppy has suffered from impostor syndrome for a long time and feels less talented, successful and loved than her siblings. She feels very lonely in her family, especially with her mother fat-shaming and constantly reminding her of what she lacks. I love a difficult relationship with family, but this topic was barely explored in the book; it was very important in the beginning but quickly resolved towards the end. It was like everything was erased and forgotten so quickly that I felt disappointed.
I liked how the author described the writing retreat and the villa in France, I was very interested in the secondary characters. The scenes in the French Riviera were nicely described as I felt transported there. I also liked how the character is plus size, but there are other issues for her character development. I hate reading books where the main character always suffers about being fat when it should just be a character characteristic. This book talks about fat-shaming but in a very realistic way, without making it the only issue in Poppy’s life.
The book focuses on grief, self-acceptance, family issues, confidence and found family. I expected more of the romance, I don’t think this book could be classified as a romance because it focuses a lot more on Poppy’s character development than on the romance between her and Oliver.
Overall, I think it was a nice reading. I thought it was a bit superficial in some parts with quick resolutions, and I wish Poppy’s development with Aunt Margot could have been better explored, but I still think it’s a good summer reading.

2.5 stars

Sadly, I didn’t end up loving this one!

Poppy is our main character - at 32 she has just given up on her life long dream of writing a book. It doesn’t help that her mother has always discouraged her from her goals, inisiting she should focus on losing weight, and finding a partner, instead, while secretly supporting her brother in his writing…who now has a six figure book deal, best selling books, and movies based off of them. Ouch.

However, she’s spent the past nine years meeting up once a year with her aunt, Margot, and keeping it a secret from her mother as they had a falling out years ago. She doesn’t learn much about her aunts life but she’s a kind and supportive presence, encouraging Poppy to keep following her dreams! Except that that starts to sting as the years pass, and she’s no closer to said dreams.

Margot suddenly passes away, and leaves behind a cryptic letter which basically tells Poppy to get her butt on a plane to the south of France - even beyond the grave, she’s trying to install that ‘main character energy’ confidence into her niece, whilst also finally revealing the secrets of her own existence.

Firstly - I did love the setting. It’s perfect escapism to the south of France, in a gorgeous villa, and we also get to explore the surrounding area a bit (and Paris!). The cast of characters we meet once we’re over there are great, fun, and diverse. The secrets Margot had been hiding are fascinating and fun to uncover (although the final one had me rolling my eyes a bit.)

My issue lies with Poppy. I understand her struggles, and her fears, but there are times where she was purposely messing around with other peoples livelihoods and futures, and she didn’t see beyond herself. She feels mildly guilty, but it still just loops back to herself. I think she treats her love interest appallingly, frankly. It made it hard to root for her, and I couldn’t have cared less about her as we reached the end of the book.

However, I think I’m in the minority here, and for most people this will be a fun, bookish, escape. I’m sad I didn’t personally love it more.

Thank you to the publishers, and Netgalley, for the early copy to review!

Poppy feels trapped in her life, in a spiral of negativity about her perceived lack of talent and success, believing the way she looks to be the biggest barrier to having the life she dreams of. She has a challenging relationship with her Mom and is incredibly jealous of her brother who has the writing career she longs for. When her Aunt Margot passes away, her will is set to change Poppy’s life. She’s offered her a way out - move to France to run a writers’ Colony and inherit Margot’s fortune. As long as she can write her own novel in time.

I have complex feelings about this book, and I probably need to do some more soul searching to understand if the ultimate reason for this is because I AM Poppy. As a curvy 30 something who feels trapped in some elements of their life and feels like their looks are a barrier, I understand this so fully and maybe I felt both seen and challenged reading it.

I enjoyed the setting of the book, and the premise of a writer’s colony is a fun one. We don’t get to learn much about the inner workings of the colony though - whilst Poppy is meant to run it, she is very fortune to have a staff of people who do that for her / she doesn’t seem to actually do much work for it, and I think I missed the challenge of this being part of the story.

I think that’s really my overall reservations about the book is that whilst Poppy is meant to be facing challenges and finding out who she is, that doesn’t really feel like it happens to me. She inherits a successful business with a staff to help run it, has the shortest hate to love with attractive but emotionally well rounded, tattooed Oliver, her relationship with her Mom whilst fraught for a lot of the story fixes very quickly despite years of animosity, and she writes a bestselling book without too much issue.

The relationship between Poppy and Oliver was probably my biggest issue pacing wise, as Oliver seems to become completely infatuated with her very quickly despite not really knowing her. I know we are supposed to quickly be invested in Poppy as the main character in the story, but it felt like I didn’t really get to know the real her at the beginning and therefore I couldn’t understand why everyone was so drawn to her. But then I have to question if that’s my own jealousy showing.

I enjoyed the parts of this that made me think about my own world view, especially the writers when they spoke about how you can support and build up other women without it affecting your own success. It really resonated with me as someone who operates with jealousy as my first emotion more often than I care to admit.

I think a lot of people will love this book, especially those who feel lost and want to find themselves and have work to do to get there. Maybe this writing didn’t quite work for me, but I also really question whether it’s more I’m not at a point yet where I can accept what this book was telling me about myself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was an enjoyable, quick and easy read. The story flowed and the characters were likeable. The story for me was quite predictable, but sometimes you just need that! This enemies to lovers, plus size romance dealt with themes of love, loss, and family feuds.

Thank you so much to the publishers for a copy of the book via NetGalley 🫶

What a book, I literally couldn't put it down. It was such a captivating read I got through it within a day, it really felt like I was there in the south of France with Poppy!

It's so refreshing to read a romance where plus sized women are not only represented, but are supported, and I loved that Poppy was never forced to 'settle' due to her size. It was the perfect balance of uplifting while also acknowledging some of the challenges faced by those who live in bigger bodies.

I've followed Jamie for years and absolutely loved that her tone of writing translated so smoothly into this book, it was well written to the point where I felt reassured as it was so easy to read. Would absolutely recommend!

This book is everything I wanted it to be and more. As a plus-sized woman who waffles with self confidence and feelings of belonging everywhere I go, Poppy felt like me. I was Poppy. The character development and growth that she had was absolutely inspiring and goals for me. The friendship and feminist rage felt raw and real and important. The romance with Oliver was the icing on the cake. This story is one that you shouldn’t miss.

3 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC copy. All thoughts are my own.

It’s a little challenging to get a clear viewpoint on how I feel about this read. I picked this up at a point in my life where I needed the messages in this. Poppy, the narrator of Main Character Energy, has spent many years in a cycle of self-despair thinking she isn’t as good as her siblings or friends at things she wants to succeed at, namely writing, because of various reasons, with the most pressing being how big she is as a person. During this book, many characters around her, especially her Aunt Margot, give her such sound advice to reach out for her dreams and to be more than her mother or herself made her believe that it’s a little too relatable. There are obvious lines in this book, such as “excuses are a great way to be on the sidelines of your own life,” that read like a self-help and life coach/motivational book. Funnily enough, the author has two self-help books published. And if this read was labelled as such, perhaps I would rate it higher, as for the first third of the read, I craved hearing these little inspirational quotes that I needed to inject into my own life, and my own “I can’t write anymore” dialogue.

However, Main Character Energy is not a self-help novel. It is a romance/women’s fiction read, and this is where I find my rating drop. Unfortunately, everything is just at a surface level. The characters are there to either give Poppy the pep talks she needs or propel her emotions/storyline along to the HEA. There is nothing substantial about them, and Poppy whips back and forth between ideas and quotable empowering lines just to become angsty again and need another pep talk. Further, any angst is handled poorly, especially with how long Poppy and her mother’s strained relationship has progressed. I found the resolution for this too idyllic. Of course, humans can learn to move on and forgive, but the lengths their broken connection had gone to were just wrapped up too neatly, as was almost all the angst in this book which felt too unrealistic.

The romance is let down by lacking any long-term development. There are a lot of moments where you think that Poppy and Oliver will progress from their crush or move forward, but instead, a time jump happens or a new “inspo quote” is inserted. I commend the author for trying to give a plus-size female character the power she deserves in front of another person romantically, but the reader is never gifted enough to believe in their connection and so the romance, for me, fell flat. This was quite a disappointment.

There are some compelling moments on topics the author has tried to infuse into this read, especially when the women on the writer’s retreat connect, but it feels placed in rather than developed naturally. Overall, this book lacked execution and made this more of a general fiction read with a heavy hand of “you can do it!!” self-help on almost every page. Main Character Energy is easy enough to digest, especially if you need some motivation for your own life. But if you’re coming in looking for well-developed characters, storyline, and romance, it’s a little off the mark there.

Main Character Energy tells the story of Poppy Banks, a struggling writer who wants to publish a best seller but faces setbacks either in the form of discouraging words from her family or the lack of opportunity from the industry herself, maybe even her own insecurities and diminishing confidence and she regularly finds herself giving up on this dream and ultimately settling for a job that pays the bills but she feels does not live up to her passion/potential. Margot, Poppy's aunt, brings a life changing opportunity that could open the doors to all of Poppy's dreams but there is a catch. Poppy will have to finish writing one book in six months. I really enjoyed this debut and it was a definite pick me up. Everyone has their own demons and this book felt like a warm embrace, a supportive energy and partner or group of friends and a change of scenery might help but ultimately you have to be your own greatest cheerleader. That may bring with it a different perspective and you learn when you treat yourself as the main character of your story, anything is possible. My only quib is that this book was slightly long and dragged in places and after reading some smutty books recently, this was the biggest slow burn ever (at times frustratingly so!) But a heartwarming read all the same. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars. Thank you @headlineeternal and @netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest unedited review.

Sweet, easy little read that's a perfect pick-me-up for fans of Emily in Paris and jet-setting rom-coms set in Europe.

This was an enjoyable read. I liked how the Mc was a plus size character which makes it a bit more relatable and I also loved how much she developed and changed as a person throughout her experiences with friends, family and also love interests.

I did request this as this was classed as a graphic novel so this may we worth noting before requesting if you are expecting this as this is a standard romance fiction book.

I also wasn’t a massive fan on how poppys family treated her and some
Of the interactions were quite triggering: