The Bachelor for bookworms
Book Riot, a website for book lovers, releases a Read Harder Challenge every year with 24 reading tasks to tick off throughout the year. To kick off the new year, I decided to check off my first task: read a fat-positive romance. One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London fits the bill perfectly. In Stayman-London’s debut novel we follow the romantic journey of Bea, a plus-sized fashion blogger living in L.A., as she stars in America’s favourite reality TV show, Main Squeeze. Bea agrees to star in this Bachelor-like show in order to boost her career, not to find love, like the show is designed for. But as we know, there wouldn’t be an excellent novel here if the story played out in that fashion. Through juicy plot twists and multimedia coverage, we watch along as Bea experiences love and loss for all of America to see.
This novel is easy to get lost in; the prologue is intriguing, and Bea herself is such an interesting character, with her exciting life as a full-time blogger in L.A. and her delightful relationship with her family out east. Stayman-London did a top-notch job at creating a completely unique story (a plus-sized woman finally being the star on a reality TV dating show) while satisfying all my expectations for a romance novel: a protagonist to root for, multiple love interests, and a supportive best friend. Throughout the novel we are treated to stories from tabloids and blogs that cover Bea and her journey on Main Squeeze. These additions are really helpful for understanding the scrutiny Bea experiences every day, and therefore made it easy to adore her and want the best for her.
One thing I really appreciate was how this novel was able to critique The Bachelor without directly mentioning it. Even though I’ve started watching it quite avidly in the past year, The Bachelor is an incredibly problematic show, and the way this novel highlighted some of these problems helped me understand it better. Stayman-London highlights the complete absence of women who are anything larger than a size four throughout the franchise. By excluding larger bodies, the Bachelor Nation franchise is implying that only thin women are worthy of deeply romantic relationships or taking up prime-time broadcasting hours. The novel also addresses the lack of racial diversity within the show — and its real life counterpart. If you just finished watching Tayshia’s season of The Bachelorette, you would have quickly noticed that there was only one suitor of Asian descent within 31 other men. In the novel, Bea requests that the producers find a group of suitors who are racially diverse, which they do. Bea also asks that their body sizes be diverse as well, but only one man was described as not being slim and muscular. However, it was never really explained in the book why Bea’s second request is ignored, which was a little upsetting on my end.
Stayman-London provides readers with a protagonist we want to root for in One to Watch. But it is not always easy for us to root for her throughout every page in the novel. Within Bea’s blog we are told that she often talks about being satisfied in her body and feeling confident about who she is, which is awesome! But when Bea arrives on Main Squeeze she immediately becomes this incredibly self-conscious and pessimistic person. I desperately wanted her to be happy and find meaningful relationships in the show, but she was constantly doubting all of the men and took a long time to give them a real chance at becoming a romantic companion for her. Thankfully, through some deeper reflection and a pep talk from her bestie, she does change her attitude and find confidence on the show.
Stayman-London has composed a novel that will make anyone reconsider their view of people who are different from them and how the media also portrays those people. We are given a novel in One to Watch with some laughs and a happy ending about finding love and trusting others. I would certainly recommend this novel to anyone who wants a break from reading heavy non-fiction and to those who already have found the joys of reading light-hearted fiction.
