Episode twelve starts a new mini-series, “Who Gets an HEA”, that showcases romances with marginalized heroes and heroines. Y. M. Nelson and Nerdy Romantics Marcie and Staci along with honorary Nerdy Romantic Pam talk about the book One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London.
While this book was chosen as an example of why plus-sized women should get an HEA, we end up discussing character issues, reality shows, and personal experiences before giving the book a Goodreads rating.
What was done well (that we didn’t discuss):
- The cape in the prologue (which was never really connected to anything else in the rest of the book, even when they went to Paris) helping to bring out Bea’s inner confidence gave the book that magical element that is consistent with the feeling reality show producers try to invoke on shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
- The inclusion of the emails, text chains, slack threads, etc. were well done and added to the plot of the story. In fact, at times they were more entertaining.
- We would love to see Reali-T get their own book or bonus content (I’m imagining “Men on Film” from In Living Color).
- The podcast duo reviewing the show (which was always a side note from their real topic) was hilarious!
- The Slack Channel fan/betting group was a whole other blossoming story! Wouldn’t you love to see a romance novel form with those characters? It reminded me of My Favorite Half-Night Stand, which I loved. See my review of that here.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What we do and don’t like about reality shows (specifically The Bachelor / The Bachelorette)
- What we thought about the book on first read and how that changed?
- Bea as a main character and representative of plus-sized women?
- Fashion and plus sizes?
- Why we may not be the target audience
- Our star rating
Books Mentioned During the Episode
We reflect on our best of 2021 book choices and talk current reads.
- The One by John Marrs
- Devolution by Max Brooks
- Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
- The Society of Intellectual Beings by Iris Bolling
- Get Over It: Prayers and Affirmations for Healing the Hard Stuff by Iyanla Vanzant
Where to find these Books
*The image above is linked to our list of books on Bookshop.org. I will receive a small commission for each purchase when using these links. (This does not affect what you pay.)
While Staci represents herself here, she is also a permanent guest on the L-5 podcast on YouTube. Check it out!