One to watch ARC review

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 show 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 anti-fat 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, razor-sharp debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men–and herself–for a chance to live happily ever after.

One To Watch follows fat fashion blogger Bea . After she goes on a drunk rant post commenting the show “Main squeeze” which is the equivalent Bachelor of the author’s universe , she is asked to star in the next season’s Main squeeze.

Lemme start with my truth , I don’t like reality tv shows. Never even watched any singing / dancing ones much rather bachelor. So this review of One to Watch comes from your Bachelor Virgin , but if you wanna read a review of this book from a bachelor veteran Shruti here.

I had the opportunity of buddy reading this with her and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived or (lemme be frank , understood) most of what’s going on . I’m not saying it’s hard to read , nope. But there are conversations from chats and fan podcast and I’m literally never even knew these existed. (If you do wanna skip those , it will not be an issue . But they’re entertaining)

Let’s get into the review.

The stuff I loved most about the book was showing us the ugly side of yearning. Most of the entertainment focusses on yearning as double sided and when one of them confesses , it turns out both of them have feelings and BAM! you have your happy ending. But you know what’s the other possibilities are? Humiliation , Heart break , and even another one , the person turns out to be a massive asshole.

Fatphobia :

We all know what happens when fat women exist much rather be a famous fashion blogger. Now Bea also stars in a reality show finding love. Bea gets the rough end of it and it just keeps getting worse with the reality twists the producers throw at her (ratings Yes! Humanity eh who cares?)

Romance :

Ah yes , after reaching this part , I got to understand the hype behind bachelor type shows. When Bea had to choose from four men and how the four men were written was just..

Representation :

Obviously , the fat rep. While Bea actually asks for more diverse cast , we get one (1/25) plus sized male , one black person and an Asian male. Yep. That’s reality tv rep for us.

Spoiler for sexuality rep

The one hoe character who doesn’t want monogamy is.. yep ! Bi!

The virgin who hasn’t had any relationships , lets hear for the drumroll , Ace & Aro.

like , lgbtq+ community has told us , it’s not that simple and asked us to get rid of the stereotypes , but.. That’s the one thing that just bugged the hell outta me

Read One to watch for a great drama filled with body positivity .

I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher . All opinions here are mine.

Have you read this book? Do you watch bachelor shows? Drop a comment❤️