If I were ever to become an author—which will never happen—I would love to write a plus-size love story because fat people are just as loveable as everyone else, and I love to see the representation. One of my favourite books featuring a plus-size MC (or even books in general) is One To Watch by Kate Stayman-London, which feels very similar to One The Plus Size by Jenny L. Howe, except this time we’re talking more What Not To Wear than The Bachelor. I love me some reality TV and I love me a curvy lady, so I jumped at the chance to read an ARC of this one.

What Not to Wear and Queer Eye meet All the Feels in this sparkling romantic comedy by Jenny L. Howe, in which the new guest on a popular plus-size makeover show has her style―and her love life―transformed.

Everly Winters is perfectly happy to navigate life like a good neutral paint colour: appreciated but unnoticed. That’s why she’s still a receptionist instead of exploring a career in art, why she lurks but never posts on the forums for her favourite makeover show, On the Plus Side, and why she’s crushing so hard on her forever-unattainable co-worker. When no one notices you, they can’t reject you or insist you’re too much.

This plan is working perfectly until someone secretly nominates Everly for the next season of On the Plus Side. Overwhelmed by the show’s extremely extroverted hosts and how much time she’ll have to spend on screen, she finds comfort in a surprising friendship with the grumpy but kind cameraman, Logan. Soon, Everly realizes that he’s someone she doesn’t mind being noticed by. In fact, she might even like it.

But when their growing connection is caught on camera, it sends the show’s ratings into a frenzy. Learning to embrace all of herself on national TV is hard enough; can Everly risk heartbreak with the whole world watching?

After being in such a book slump lately, I’m SO happy to report that I loved this story. Logan is crushworthy, the supporting characters are great, and I love a good reality TV trope. When this book comes out on December 26, I really hope people buy it because it’s a romantic-comedy that seems realistic (despite the reality TV angle).

What didn’t work for me

Everly’s confidence: At times, I was a little confused about how Everly saw herself. Sometimes, she was saying she wanted to hide and not be seen, but other times, she was saying she looked great in everything, and I feel like one person can’t really be both things at the same time. This probably isn’t the right book for it, but I really hope one day we get a plus-size character who is just plus-sized and where that isn’t the anchor of the story. But Howe did a great job of giving Everly other character traits, at least, so she wasn’t *just* fat.

Spice level: I was really hoping we were going to get a sex scene with a fat person. Yet again, it was fade-to-black. Don’t get me wrong, you can tell the characters are drawn to each other and are hot for each other, but I would have liked a little more spice.

What I liked

Logan: It’s not a spoiler to say that Logan is the love interest—I mean, he’s on the cover. I really enjoy that we didn’t get his POV, but it was really clear that he was into Everly from the start. There wasn’t really much “does he like me?” or “I must be misinterpreting things” or mixed messages—they figured out pretty quickly that they were into each other, and it was refreshing. He really had his priorities straight.

The pacing: The story starts basically at page one, with Everly being bombarded by the hosts of the show she loves, and from there, we dove right in. There wasn’t a lot of extra, unnecessary storytelling…and I love when there’s an epilogue, too.

No breakup: I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, so I’m going to keep it vague, but in almost every story like this, some miscommunication happens between the main character and their love interest, so they break up or spend some time apart for a while before they get back together. I’m happy to report that there is nothing like that here! They go through something together and have each other’s backs and it feels so much more realistic.

The dog content: This is going to seem random, but there are a lot of mentions of dogs and pets and they all have adorable names—and I was here for it.

4 STARS

“She’d never looked in the mirror and hated what she saw. It was more that she hadn’t wanted to see anything at all” —Jenny L. Howe, On The Plus Side

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced book copy in exchange for my honest review.