One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

I picked this up on a whim at the bookstore a few days ago. I read it all it one sitting this Sunday.

Bea Schumacher is a plus-sized fashion blogger that seems to have no luck finding love. She loves watching a hit reality TV show called Main Squeeze. The star of the show meets 25 potential suitors and the aim of the show is for the star to get engaged to one of the suitors.

Bea tweets out her thoughts on the lack of the diversity and representation to her followers, this gets picked up by the media, but there’s no comment from the show’s network until she gets an email inviting her to meet the producer.

Long story short, Bea ends up being the star of the next season of the show. The book follows the prep for the show, the show itself and a little bit of the aftermath.

I was hooked, the reader doesn’t know what the producers will throw at Bea next. And her inner struggles….. She keeps looking for an ulterior motive in all the suitors. I even wanted her to just quit the show because it felt so surreal and she was having such a difficult time.

I’m not big on TV shows, though I do watch the odd fashion contest type show (or more recently Selling Sunset). It’s hard to say how much of what happens on these shows is actually staged, but I kind of think a lot of it is?

Kudos to Bea for persevering, one can’t help but cheer her own and secretly hope she’ll fall in love, or, at least meet a guy that’s not a complete jerk.

I have to give Allison, the fashion stylist on the show, and the person dressing Bea for every episode a shout out. Every outfit sounds incredible and I could picture the outfits in my head. I was too absorbed to reach for my phone and Google whether such and such dress actually exist. Allison was also Bea’s emotional support in some tough moments on the show.

The story is dynamic (see part where I mention reading this in one sitting), but whether it’ll actually be memorable for me remains to be seen. I do feel that it could’ve been a bit shorter and some situations were way over the top, but it is about a TV show so I probably should’ve seen it coming.

As someone who’s put on extra weight in recent years, I could relate to her struggles to shop for clothes that look good and exist in her size, to feel like you’re being judged by the sales assistants, etc. Luckily, I did not relate do the dating / love aspect of it all (love you husband!). I think this specific section in the description is what called out to me and why I ultimately read this.

Ultimately, I decided to rate it 3 stars (good rating coming from me, believe me) and I’m glad I read it. However, I do think it’ll be a forgettable story. Ask me in a few months, will you?

Have you read this book? Let me know in the comments below.