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One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

 

**SPOILERS BE HERE**

I love to hate watch The Bachelor/ette. It's a guilty pleasure I've watched for three or four seasons now, and every time a new season starts, I say I'm not going to waste my time with it. I waste my time with it. In that respect, I really enjoyed this book. The Bachelorette in book form? Yes, please! It could have used more focus on what the men were up to throughout the week, who the secret (to the bachelorette) villains were, who was the most catty, who was actually decent to everyone, etc., but it's not a book about them, so I understand why we didn't get that. The "winner" was pretty obvious from the start, but that's fine--I sometimes find it more interesting to know that so you can watch the relationship develop without any mystery. I read this in about three days because I was so into The Bachelorette story. I also really liked the epistolary segments--they're my jam.

That's about where my enjoyment stopped. This book was so ridiculously full of cliches that it was painful sometimes. Everyone is a caricature, and so many diversities are shoe-horned in--the non-gender conforming son, the lesbian best friend, the Asian and Black male leads (whose races really didn't even play a vital part, and the Asian lead in particular was fairly stereotypical). 

My main problem was with Bea. Maybe I'm not the right audience for this book and don't have a leg to stand on since I couldn't relate to her. I'm very fortunate that I've never had major struggles with weight--I've always been in the normal BMI range--but I think this book could have been better written so I empathized with her a little more. It was obviously horrible to read about some men being straight up rude to her face or saying she will never find love, and I felt for her then. I really can't put my thoughts into words, but another reader on Goodreads did a pretty good job, so I'll summarize that (because I'm too lazy to go find that review).

Bea wasn't a good role model. Part of her reason for going on the show is to prove to the world that plus-sized women deserve love and are more than their weight. She's a plus-sized role model to people, but she never did anything really laudable. Sure, good for her for putting herself out there, but she complained the entire book about it. It got old very quickly, and it doesn't seem like she really learned anything. There were "gorgeous" men right in front of her, telling her that she's beautiful, and she just didn't believe them. I don't know that struggle, but after weeks of that, shouldn't you at least consider it's a possibility that they don't care about your size? Wasn't the entire point of going on the show to prove that your size doesn't matter? But she never believed it! And, unrelated, why wouldn't the producer include more body types? That was one of the most ridiculous things I've read.

And she was so stereotypical! A lot of the time, size doesn't equate to health and fitness level. Why was that never brought up? I think it was kind of skimmed over--how being fat often isn't a result of eating too much and being sedentary; there are many reasons--but couldn't that have been tackled to change some perceptions? She could have had a medical condition or been on a medication. Or she could just naturally be bigger no matter what she does--which seemed like the case. But if that's the case, talk about it! When the trainer approached her about a great fitness program, why didn't she talk about how she actually already has a program and works out four times a week? Or at some point, someone asks her her favorite food and she talks about California's farmers' markets to try to change the country's view when in reality she wanted to say takeout or burgers or something. Why couldn't she eat healthy but still be bigger? Her attitude and the handling of the plus-size issue were just so frustrating. This book is touted as being body-positive, but is it when she spends the entire book ragging on herself? 

Rant over. Half the book was great and half was not, so for that reason it's gets a perfectly average rating.

Completed: 15 February 2021
Rating: 2.5/5
Recommend: I honestly cannot say

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