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A review by katelynisboring
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
1.0
I should preface this by saying I have never watched the bachelor or any similar show, probably for the exact reason of this book: a major lack of representation. The concept of the book seemed perfect. A bunch of men begging for a chance to be with a plus sized bachelor? Sign me up.
Unfortunately, this is not a fantasy and many instances have very real takes that just seemed to sit at an awkward middle between real and fake. For starters, there was a significant amount of purely violent fatphobia from online trolls, at one point going as far to say they want her dead or raped and most of the suitors/contestants are either fatphobic to her face, behind her back, or subtly. She was called a “cow” multiple times by the male contestants who clearly didn’t want an endgame romantic relationship with her. While this is a reality of dating, I genuinely expected this book to have 25 men excited to be with her, or at least half of them. There’s *maybe* 8 men in total who I can name, and most of them are awful (Cooper and Nash) or were written with a very flat, one note personality.
Worst of all there’s so many unnecessary, unexplored plot twists. For example:
1) Asher has kids and then it’s quickly no problem. Which I do feel might be valid since Bea wants kids and has nieces and nephews anyways, but there isn’t much as to why she doesn’t care that Asher has kids. Just that she doesn’t. Also- his son is labeled as gender nonconforming and still refers to himself with he/him pronouns and calls himself a boy. Unfortunately this read as most of the representation is in the book: it was there when relevant. Bea never asks what kind of support it would take to raise a child who is GNC in a cruel world, and even the son seems like he’s just there as a prop instead of a dimensional character. Within this book there is representation, but not in a way that gives the story any dimension. Bea never talks about them physically in any way beyond first impressions. After that it’s only as a relevant reminder “oh yeah, we have representation.”
2) Bea sends Jefferson home, and he says terrible, cruel things to her face, AND on national television. She’s just started being vulnerable again and while it’s made clear she’s hurt, she basically gets over it in a day. If she’s just begun this journey of vulnerability I truly feel like it would’ve taken MUCH longer for her to get over that level of hurt.
3) Wyatt reveals the experience has made him realize he’s asexual and aromantic and while I actually enjoyed this character development, it’s never something that anyone really talks about. It just all happens to work out for him on an emotional/social level and everyone moves on.
4) Bea walks in on Lauren and Luc having sex RIGHT AFTER Luc and her have sex. while she’s clearly very hurt and essentially refuses to talk to anyone, she still gets over it in around a day and is quickly on speaking terms with Lauren, and is able to be at least cordial with Luc. This was SOOOO unrealistic to me. How on earth, given the placement of this event with her character development, does getting over this event in a day or two make ANY sense?
5) Asher storms out and calls Bea a liar and a cheat - which arguably hurts Bea more than the fatphobic comments she’s faced throughout the competition. He doesn’t even show up to the reunion special, and never speaks to her again…untilllll….he shows up at her favorite museum (the one their first date was in) and begs for her to give him a second chance. I mean she *is* rightfully upset, but she also takes him back just as quickly. When her ex…bf? Best friend? situationship? showed up at the show she points out he had all this time to come back to her, to tell her how he felt, etc but he only did so on his own time. And talks about how deeply that hurt her. Asher as far as I’m concerned did the same but instead it works out as a happily ever after. He does have a more realistic apology, but it just felt like the author realized a happy ending might include a relationship, let’s give it to the best option of what we’ve got. Side note about this relationship though- they get engaged pretty much a year after filming. Which is just so odd to me because their characters are both closed off and untrusting, yet, a year feels awfully quick given how slow they both wanted their relationships to go. I’m sure these plot twists were to keep the readers engaged but at a certain point it was just redundant, the characters would resolve the “twist” quickly and it wouldn’t *really* get brought up again, and if it did it was just a reminder it existed, rather than really unpacking what just happened.
1) Asher has kids and then it’s quickly no problem. Which I do feel might be valid since Bea wants kids and has nieces and nephews anyways, but there isn’t much as to why she doesn’t care that Asher has kids. Just that she doesn’t. Also- his son is labeled as gender nonconforming and still refers to himself with he/him pronouns and calls himself a boy. Unfortunately this read as most of the representation is in the book: it was there when relevant. Bea never asks what kind of support it would take to raise a child who is GNC in a cruel world, and even the son seems like he’s just there as a prop instead of a dimensional character. Within this book there is representation, but not in a way that gives the story any dimension. Bea never talks about them physically in any way beyond first impressions. After that it’s only as a relevant reminder “oh yeah, we have representation.”
2) Bea sends Jefferson home, and he says terrible, cruel things to her face, AND on national television. She’s just started being vulnerable again and while it’s made clear she’s hurt, she basically gets over it in a day. If she’s just begun this journey of vulnerability I truly feel like it would’ve taken MUCH longer for her to get over that level of hurt.
3) Wyatt reveals the experience has made him realize he’s asexual and aromantic and while I actually enjoyed this character development, it’s never something that anyone really talks about. It just all happens to work out for him on an emotional/social level and everyone moves on.
4) Bea walks in on Lauren and Luc having sex RIGHT AFTER Luc and her have sex. while she’s clearly very hurt and essentially refuses to talk to anyone, she still gets over it in around a day and is quickly on speaking terms with Lauren, and is able to be at least cordial with Luc. This was SOOOO unrealistic to me. How on earth, given the placement of this event with her character development, does getting over this event in a day or two make ANY sense?
5) Asher storms out and calls Bea a liar and a cheat - which arguably hurts Bea more than the fatphobic comments she’s faced throughout the competition. He doesn’t even show up to the reunion special, and never speaks to her again…untilllll….he shows up at her favorite museum (the one their first date was in) and begs for her to give him a second chance. I mean she *is* rightfully upset, but she also takes him back just as quickly. When her ex…bf? Best friend? situationship? showed up at the show she points out he had all this time to come back to her, to tell her how he felt, etc but he only did so on his own time. And talks about how deeply that hurt her. Asher as far as I’m concerned did the same but instead it works out as a happily ever after. He does have a more realistic apology, but it just felt like the author realized a happy ending might include a relationship, let’s give it to the best option of what we’ve got. Side note about this relationship though- they get engaged pretty much a year after filming. Which is just so odd to me because their characters are both closed off and untrusting, yet, a year feels awfully quick given how slow they both wanted their relationships to go.
I’m genuinely sad the book worked out to be so disappointing. It had a lot of potential but the execution was deeply lacking on this one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia and Bullying
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Toxic friendship
Minor: Rape
this book mentions graphic fatphobic trolls doxxing the MC & threats of rape as “hate tweets”