One to Watch: A Novel

Kate Stayman-London

Jul 2020 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Kristen Sieh

About this audiobook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Real love . . . as seen on TV. A plus-size bachelorette brings a fresh look to a reality show in this razor-sharp, “divinely witty” (Entertainment Weekly) debut.

“Effortlessly fun and clever . . . I found the tension impeccable . . . and that made my reading experience incredibly propulsive. Read it in a day and a half.”—Emily Henry, #1 bestselling author of Beach Read and The People We Meet on Vacation

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • Marie Claire • Mashable

Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger who has amazing friends, a devoted family, legions of Insta followers—and a massively broken heart. Like the rest of America, Bea 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. She’s in this to supercharge her career, subvert harmful beauty standards, inspire women across America, and get a free hot air balloon ride. That’s it.

But when the cameras start rolling, Bea realizes things are more complicated than she anticipated. She’s in a whirlwind of sumptuous couture, Internet culture wars, sexy suitors, and an opportunity (or two, or five) to find messy, real-life love in the midst of a made-for-TV fairy tale. In this joyful, wickedly observant debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men—and herself—for a chance to live happily ever after.

Ratings and reviews

Bea Shumacher is a plus-sized fashion blogger who is convinced to be the star of a Bachelorette-type show, but the male contestants don't even see a picture of her until they are introduced during the first episode. One contestant walks off upon meeting her. She asked the producer to choose diverse male contestants. Bea meant body diversity but the producer went with ethnic diversity! Before the show is finished she experiences every emotion imaginable, is made to feel less than inferior by a majority of the contestants, and doubts the sincerity of the rest, but in the end she chooses to be true to herself! This book takes an honest look at how plus-sized women are treated in an industry that believes that size 8 is a plus size and by society in general. This is a well-written, refreshing debut novel and I enjoyed it very much! I will be watching for more books from Kate Stayman-London. I received an advance reader copy from the publisher for my reading enjoyment.

This book was so good! I love Bea so much! I had such anxiety for her though! I could relate to her in so many levels. This was my first book by this author but it will not be my last.

5 stars — Honestly, I’m not even sure where to start with this one, I feel like I’m still reeling…in a good way, but wow. This book put me through SO MUCH, and I think it’s going to take a bit to recover, b/c I was seriously heavily invested. I think the word I’m searching for is overwhelmed. I will admit that there were a few touchy subjects in this book that I wasn’t sure if they were going to mar my enjoyment…some that happened early, some later. But somehow they didn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I was skeptical of where the book was going to go and how things were going to progress, but I can wholeheartedly say that at the end of it I just felt super happy, satisfied, and kind of a hopeful joy. I feel like given the twists and turns in the book, that was not an easy feat to accomplish, and I can’t guarantee that everyone will feel this way, but I can honestly say that by the time I was done I felt like I’d read one of my favourite books of the year, even with all its faults…or maybe because of them? It’s so weird to think of all the things that made me unhappy, but because of where the book ended up, I’m not even going to play it safe with a 4.5 star rounded up…*beep* it, it was full 5 stars for me. I think part of what this book taught me is that mistakes don’t have to define you. That even the best people make really really bad decisions, and it shouldn’t necessarily follow them around for life. I also learned that there are very few people that are 100% villains, but a lot of people who are ridiculously flawed, and sometimes those flaws will be ones you can work with and sometimes they will be ones that you can’t. I loved the message of *choosing*. Choosing love, choosing family. I will admit that the fatphobia/fat shaming that is inherently a part of this story (because trolls are real, horrible people are real) was HARD to hear. I think on the whole this is a very body/fat positive story, but it exposes the horrible underbelly of our society, and how those hurts can manifest in a crapton of different ways, from the overt to the subtle. At times it felt like too much, so if you’re sensitive to it, please go in knowing that it is there. The book it sprinkled with text conversations, group chat transcripts, blog posts from random sites on the internet, twitter threads, transcripts of podcasts, etc. And so some of those things are horrible. Just as they are in real life. But the first few times it just ripped me apart because I wasn’t expecting the format. In the end, I actually LOVED the way the story was told, but I just feel like if people need a heads up, then heads up. And since I’m talking about formats, can I just say that I cannot recommend enough *listening* to the audiobook version of this story? Sure, then you’ll have absolutely no idea how to spell Marin for your review (thanks Goodreads for the character list), but the narrator freaking NAILS this performance. I mean, she had voices for EVERYTHING. I honestly don’t know how she did it, but like every transcript, every text conversation, every podcast…they all had a personality that I felt, and I became invested in some of the recurring ones. And the emotions! WOW, THE EMOTIONS!! Jesus. Kristen Sieh has catapulted into favourite narrator territory on one performance alone. I’ll probably end up reading books I never would have before just to see how she pulls it off. I mean, I ended up in love with a French accent by the end of it, and it’s never done it for me before. Obviously I can’t talk about how the story ends up, but I can honestly say I didn’t expect to change my mind and have no absolute favourite along the way. It kept changing. But the ending was the ending I needed, so I’m super happy about that. Obviously there were plenty of horrific guys, but I think the handful of flawed gems were exactly what I needed. Bea was…so much. I loved how much she learned about herself and how much she grew over the crazy show. And I wrote too much...

About the author

Kate Stayman-London is a novelist, screenwriter, and political strategist. She served as lead digital writer for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and has written for notable figures ranging from President Obama and Malala Yousafzai to Anna Wintour and Cher. When not writing or traveling, Kate can be found obsessively ranking Taylor Swift songs, laughing loudly with friends over really good bottles of wine, and of course, watching reality TV. She lives in Los Angeles.