A review by jillybean357
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
4.0
If one thing is for sure, this book is a juicy read. It is perfect for getting lost in for hours on end, I was always cranky when I had to pull myself out of the story to go do other things with my life. I was always eager to return to the book and re-immerse myself in a world with so much elegance, fashion, and romance.
The decision of including podcast scripts, news articles, and twitter feeds was brilliant. It really set the scene and built up the culture of everything happening online, in the blink of an eye. It also gave the reader a sense of just how much pressure was on Bea’s shoulders, and how many people were watching her and either rooting for her or hating on her.
Three cheers for casual representation! A big theme in this book was body type representation, and racial representation had some achieved depth as well, but I was very impressed by the casual LGBTQ inclusion too. Never have I ever read a straight romance novel with LGBTQ identities that were relevant to the plot. Wyatt’s journey to identifying as asexual and Linus’s gender non conformity were my absolute favorites, although there were other smaller references in other parts of the book. I love that the two identities represented were ace and gender non conforming, which are two that you don’t see present very often, not just in books but in any kind of media. And in a romance novel nonetheless… consider me impressed.
All of the discussion about body types and body positivity hit the nail right on the head. I don’t feel like anything was left out when talking about the side discrimination many women face for not conforming to a certain range of clothing sizes. Topics like how medical concerns are nobody’s business except an individuals, plus size women being denied designer clothing because of their size, the unique discrimination plus size women face vs. plus size men (I have never heard of a man being called “plus size”, usually a man’s weight or size is left out of his description while it is always mentioned if a women is plus sized or not), and many other important sizes of this issue were brought into light. Some characters fetishized Bea, tried to entice her to workout, or were blatantly rude to her face, and while I hated reading those characters, they were important to show just how much discrimination plus sized women face. Sometimes we intend to say things in a “looking out for them” context, but that is usually not helpful.
My not so favorite parts were as follows: the plot “twists” were incredibly predictable, so much so that it was no fun reading them because I had predicted them so far in advance. I have never been a giant fan of dating shows, so reading this book further solidified my opinion that dating shows are more trouble than they are worth. I constantly found myself feeling bad for Bea. I do not think it is a very good idea to tell one person to date many other people at the same time, for an extended amount of time, and then force the person to pick somebody. Building scenarios like that does not set a precedent for love, it sets a precedent for drama. I suppose drama is better for ratings than love is, but that seems pretty cruel to the poor souls that are subjected to being on the show. The ending felt a bit rushed and the characters decisions did not feel very “in character”. We barely got any closure with Asher, or much of an explanation as to why is was such a jerk. And Luc got villainized much more than he deserved. I was never the biggest fan of Lauren, but I was very happy to see that her career did not end because of her affair, it didnt even come close. After all, why should an affair mean the end of a woman’s career but not a man’s?
This book was not deeply profound, or rich with substance. However it was a highly entertaining read that also brought a lot of feminist and body positivity concepts into the spotlight. It is the perfect book to get lost in, I would highly recommend it for a long plane ride or a weekend when you have nothing going on.
The decision of including podcast scripts, news articles, and twitter feeds was brilliant. It really set the scene and built up the culture of everything happening online, in the blink of an eye. It also gave the reader a sense of just how much pressure was on Bea’s shoulders, and how many people were watching her and either rooting for her or hating on her.
Three cheers for casual representation! A big theme in this book was body type representation, and racial representation had some achieved depth as well, but I was very impressed by the casual LGBTQ inclusion too. Never have I ever read a straight romance novel with LGBTQ identities that were relevant to the plot. Wyatt’s journey to identifying as asexual and Linus’s gender non conformity were my absolute favorites, although there were other smaller references in other parts of the book. I love that the two identities represented were ace and gender non conforming, which are two that you don’t see present very often, not just in books but in any kind of media. And in a romance novel nonetheless… consider me impressed.
All of the discussion about body types and body positivity hit the nail right on the head. I don’t feel like anything was left out when talking about the side discrimination many women face for not conforming to a certain range of clothing sizes. Topics like how medical concerns are nobody’s business except an individuals, plus size women being denied designer clothing because of their size, the unique discrimination plus size women face vs. plus size men (I have never heard of a man being called “plus size”, usually a man’s weight or size is left out of his description while it is always mentioned if a women is plus sized or not), and many other important sizes of this issue were brought into light. Some characters fetishized Bea, tried to entice her to workout, or were blatantly rude to her face, and while I hated reading those characters, they were important to show just how much discrimination plus sized women face. Sometimes we intend to say things in a “looking out for them” context, but that is usually not helpful.
My not so favorite parts were as follows: the plot “twists” were incredibly predictable, so much so that it was no fun reading them because I had predicted them so far in advance. I have never been a giant fan of dating shows, so reading this book further solidified my opinion that dating shows are more trouble than they are worth. I constantly found myself feeling bad for Bea. I do not think it is a very good idea to tell one person to date many other people at the same time, for an extended amount of time, and then force the person to pick somebody. Building scenarios like that does not set a precedent for love, it sets a precedent for drama. I suppose drama is better for ratings than love is, but that seems pretty cruel to the poor souls that are subjected to being on the show. The ending felt a bit rushed and the characters decisions did not feel very “in character”. We barely got any closure with Asher, or much of an explanation as to why is was such a jerk. And Luc got villainized much more than he deserved. I was never the biggest fan of Lauren, but I was very happy to see that her career did not end because of her affair, it didnt even come close. After all, why should an affair mean the end of a woman’s career but not a man’s?
This book was not deeply profound, or rich with substance. However it was a highly entertaining read that also brought a lot of feminist and body positivity concepts into the spotlight. It is the perfect book to get lost in, I would highly recommend it for a long plane ride or a weekend when you have nothing going on.