One to Watch – Amy Leigh Reads

This is my final Quarterly Reading Recommendation post for 2020. I will be listing my top 10 favourite books I read during the last 3 months before I start compiling my lists and picking out my top ten overall of 2020 which I will post in a few days! If you want to check out my third quarterly reading recommendations click HERE!

My recommendations for October – November – December are:

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

No Exit by Taylor Adams

All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

Hold Back the Tide by Melinda Salisbury

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger who 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.

I loved Bea as our main protagonist. She’s witty, fun, well spoken and still is constantly making mistakes but owning them and moving forward at all times. I loved the fact that she’s such an advocate for plus sized people yet still has her own insecurities when it comes to dating and men in general, especially under the contrived circumstances of a reality dating show. I think anyone in her situation would think and react quite similarly to her and I loved how raw and accurate the depictions were.

The format of the book was fantastic and definitely kept me engaged. From the production emails to the call sheet and the messages in the fan group chats, it gave much needed depth and contrast to the book and set a fast pace as well. At first the pacing felt too fast especially when we are meeting all of the men. I couldn’t really differentiate between them all and was forgetting which was which. I kind of wanted more of a slower introduction and a more thorough background of all of them but it made sense how rushed things were in terms of the plotline.

At times I got a little bored with all of Bea’s indecisiveness. Agonising over every single detail of the dates and whether or not the men were in this for the right reasons which again is valid but it did kind of get on my nerves. She comes across as such a boss bitch from the way she dresses and how she articulates herself but the journey to the end did drag a little.

Lauren’s indiscretion really got on my nerves. I feel like all the trust we built with her over the course of the storyline was shattered and I really feel like Bea should of been more hurt about it. She forgave her really quickly and given the context we receive from her earlier behaviour when she is confronted with similar situations she would of reacted differently. So that was a little weird for me as well.

Overall I highly enjoyed this book. It was really nice having some more fat representation in books and I feel like this is highly underrated!

⭐️4/5 stars endearing, funny & honest!