One to Watch A Novel by Kate Stayman-London

Book Excerpt:

"Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger who has amazing friends, a devoted family, legions of Insta followers—and a massively broken heart. Like the rest of America, Bea indulges in her weekly obsession: the hit reality shows Main Squeeze. The fantasy dates! The kiss-off rejections! The surprising amount of guys named Chad! But Bea is sick and tired of the lack of body diversity on the show. Since when is being a size zero a prerequisite for getting engaged on television?

Just when Bea has sworn off dating altogether, she gets an intriguing call: Main Squeeze wants her to be its next star, surrounded by men vying for her affections. Bea agrees, on one condition—under no circumstances will she actually fall in love. She’s in this to supercharge her career, subvert harmful beauty standards, inspire women across America, and get a free hot air balloon ride. That’s it.

But when the cameras start rolling, Bea realizes things are more complicated than she anticipated. She’s in a whirlwind of sumptuous couture, Internet culture wars, sexy suitors, and an opportunity (or two, or five) to find messy, real-life love in the midst of a made-for-TV fairy tale. In this joyful, wickedly observant debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men—and herself—for a chance to live happily ever after."

Title: One to Watch

Author: Kate Stayman-London

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Reviewed By: Arlena Dean

Rating: Four

Review:

"One to Watch" by Kate Stayman-London

My Speculation:

"One to Watch" was a different take on romance that involved an overweight female fashion blogger who took on quite a journey to find love on 'Main Squeeze' and went on a Bachelor-esquire reality TV dating show. I will say this read had many manipulative and cutthroat mechanisms involved in this romantic setting. Be ready for a story that will include not only 'traditional narration combined with text messages, reporting through [Deadline, Jezebel & others]. With podcast transcripts, channel chatter, supportive tweets, and comments, hateful tweets with its comments' but even more will come out of this story. Will Bea be able to get over her insecurities and struggles? 

The reader will feel you are right there in the midst of it all with some interesting defined characters that will leave you shaking your head. It was a good take on how this author let one know what it's like to be plus-size and how some people acted on it offensively. To get it all of this story, you will have to pick up "One to Watch" to see how this author brings it all out to the reader.