Scan barcode
asexualandriod's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Homophobia, Ableism, Vomit, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcohol, and Biphobia
Minor: Toxic relationship
kingrosereads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
3.75/5 ⭐️
I want to start off my saying I really loved this book. It was such a cute romcom. I love Charlie as a character. He is so wholesome and amazing. And I love Dev so much. He’s just this big heart that just made me want the best for him. I have to start by saying the queer and mental health representation was really on point in the book. This is my second Bachelor-esque romcom, but my first queer one. I hate The Bachelor in real life, and I don’t watch any reality TV (aside from cooking shows and home improvement), but it’s clear now I love these kinds of books.
Okay so it’s pretty straight forward, Charlie is a tech genius who has a reputation for being hard to work with and even talked about as a “head case”. So his publicist/best friend, Parisa (love of my life right here), gets him on the dating show, Ever After, where 20 women will compete for his love. On this show, Dev, a producer, becomes Charlie’s handler. Almost from the start these two have this cute chemistry that had me melting. Dev is a hopeless romantic who has a rose colored view of the show whereas Charlie believes the show is fake and is only there to improve his image. As it turns out, Charlie has OCD and a panic disorder (but reading Charlie’s POV, I feel he might also be on the spectrum? Just so many of his mannerisms remind me of those I know with ASD, but it could just be overlap from his anxiety disorders) which is why he doesn’t like to be touched or forced into social situations. But Dev somehow is able to calm Charlie in such a beautiful and intimate way. Dev also deals with mental illness and has suffered with depression since childhood (he might also have ADHD). The two have opposite childhood experiences: Charlie’s family made his life miserable for being different and “difficult”, whereas Dev’s family was loving and supportive of him from his queerness to his mental health.
Obviously, as the show goes on it’s clear the two like each other and they act on those feelings despite contracts and threats of legal action. And the two begin learning about themselves individually and opening up to one another in ways they never did with anyone else. For a moment I was worried about the dependency between the two of them, but that works itself out in the end. By the last few episodes of the season, it’s very clear to Dev (who’s rose colored glasses have been shattered) that Ever After is problematic in more ways than one.
I found myself laughing and crying so much at this book just because I felt seen. Though Charlie doesn’t definitively define his sexuality, he dances around the idea that he’s demisexual or graysexual but definitely on the asexual spectrum. He’s never felt sexual attraction until Dev, but only ever tried dating women because that’s what he thought was expected of him. I too struggled with my identity as a demisexual woman (and omg the fact this book even said the word “biromantic” had me crying because it took me so long to find the right words for me). But also it’s the mental health representation that had me crying the most. I suffer from both anxiety and depression, and I just saw so many of my own thoughts in Charlie’s and Dev’s. Even though they’re fictional characters, it’s nice to know it’s not just me. I so appreciate that Dev and Charlie learn they’re deserving and worthy of love and not just romantic love but platonic and self love, too.
Several times throughout the book there’s mentions of Ever After’s issue with having a bisexual winner or a winner of color. It’s the idea of a non-heterosexual winner that gets most discussed in the book. There’s passing comments about the show’s blatant whiteness but the focus in mainly on its problem with heteronormativity. Though the message is clear without it being pointed out, a lot like in Hollywood (and other industries), the people behind the scenes tend to be people of color and the people on screen are white. Charlie, the Prince Charming, is white, most of the contestants are white, in fact, the only one of note is Angie and she’s also the bisexual contestant the show runners refuse to have win the contest. But behind the scenes you have asexual Skylar, a black woman, Jules who is bisexual and of East Asian descent, of course, Dev who’s gay and Indian-American, and even the powerhouse that is Parisa, as Charlie’s publicist, is pansexual and it’s briefly insinuated that she’s a brown Muslim woman. I mean it’s a clear reflection of how POC are always put in the background doing much of the work without being in the spotlight. And how companies will claim they’re tolerant and hire queer people, but they can’t really be out to the public.
I think this book does great at the queer representation, the ace rep, and mental health representation. But I don’t think it did a good job at representing an interracial relationship or Indian-American representation. And that’s not to say Dev’s parents couldn’t have been total hippies in the 1960s and are chill as parents just because they’re Indian. But there’s just no substance to Dev’s Indian identity. He talks about there aren’t people that look like him on TV and about how his script (which is supposed to be an Americanized Bollywood romcom [akin to the Americanized telenovela, Jane the Virgin]) about what it’s like to be Desi American and how no one will pick up the script because it’s brown and queer, but that’s it. It’s all like the bare minimum of the bare minimum. Just saying a character is Indian or Black or East Asian or Arab isn’t enough. There are cultural aspects and implications that differ from generic white Americans and their experience. I mean I appreciate that the novel points out the racism of Hollywood and white privilege, but if you’re gonna make the love interest a person of color, don’t make it so their character could easily be switched out with a white person without having to change anything to make the switch fit.
Overall, I think this is a cute queer romcom with great ace and mental health representation. I think it’s a decent try on the POC representation, but I’d like to see more than just “this character is not white” in future characters of colors Cochrun writes. It’s not enough to just have representation it has to be good representation. And not just physical representation it has to have the cultural rep too.
I want to start off my saying I really loved this book. It was such a cute romcom. I love Charlie as a character. He is so wholesome and amazing. And I love Dev so much. He’s just this big heart that just made me want the best for him. I have to start by saying the queer and mental health representation was really on point in the book. This is my second Bachelor-esque romcom, but my first queer one. I hate The Bachelor in real life, and I don’t watch any reality TV (aside from cooking shows and home improvement), but it’s clear now I love these kinds of books.
Okay so it’s pretty straight forward, Charlie is a tech genius who has a reputation for being hard to work with and even talked about as a “head case”. So his publicist/best friend, Parisa (love of my life right here), gets him on the dating show, Ever After, where 20 women will compete for his love. On this show, Dev, a producer, becomes Charlie’s handler. Almost from the start these two have this cute chemistry that had me melting. Dev is a hopeless romantic who has a rose colored view of the show whereas Charlie believes the show is fake and is only there to improve his image. As it turns out, Charlie has OCD and a panic disorder (but reading Charlie’s POV, I feel he might also be on the spectrum? Just so many of his mannerisms remind me of those I know with ASD, but it could just be overlap from his anxiety disorders) which is why he doesn’t like to be touched or forced into social situations. But Dev somehow is able to calm Charlie in such a beautiful and intimate way. Dev also deals with mental illness and has suffered with depression since childhood (he might also have ADHD). The two have opposite childhood experiences: Charlie’s family made his life miserable for being different and “difficult”, whereas Dev’s family was loving and supportive of him from his queerness to his mental health.
Obviously, as the show goes on it’s clear the two like each other and they act on those feelings despite contracts and threats of legal action. And the two begin learning about themselves individually and opening up to one another in ways they never did with anyone else. For a moment I was worried about the dependency between the two of them, but that works itself out in the end. By the last few episodes of the season, it’s very clear to Dev (who’s rose colored glasses have been shattered) that Ever After is problematic in more ways than one.
I found myself laughing and crying so much at this book just because I felt seen. Though Charlie doesn’t definitively define his sexuality, he dances around the idea that he’s demisexual or graysexual but definitely on the asexual spectrum. He’s never felt sexual attraction until Dev, but only ever tried dating women because that’s what he thought was expected of him. I too struggled with my identity as a demisexual woman (and omg the fact this book even said the word “biromantic” had me crying because it took me so long to find the right words for me). But also it’s the mental health representation that had me crying the most. I suffer from both anxiety and depression, and I just saw so many of my own thoughts in Charlie’s and Dev’s. Even though they’re fictional characters, it’s nice to know it’s not just me. I so appreciate that Dev and Charlie learn they’re deserving and worthy of love and not just romantic love but platonic and self love, too.
Several times throughout the book there’s mentions of Ever After’s issue with having a bisexual winner or a winner of color. It’s the idea of a non-heterosexual winner that gets most discussed in the book. There’s passing comments about the show’s blatant whiteness but the focus in mainly on its problem with heteronormativity. Though the message is clear without it being pointed out, a lot like in Hollywood (and other industries), the people behind the scenes tend to be people of color and the people on screen are white. Charlie, the Prince Charming, is white, most of the contestants are white, in fact, the only one of note is Angie and she’s also the bisexual contestant the show runners refuse to have win the contest. But behind the scenes you have asexual Skylar, a black woman, Jules who is bisexual and of East Asian descent, of course, Dev who’s gay and Indian-American, and even the powerhouse that is Parisa, as Charlie’s publicist, is pansexual and it’s briefly insinuated that she’s a brown Muslim woman. I mean it’s a clear reflection of how POC are always put in the background doing much of the work without being in the spotlight. And how companies will claim they’re tolerant and hire queer people, but they can’t really be out to the public.
I think this book does great at the queer representation, the ace rep, and mental health representation. But I don’t think it did a good job at representing an interracial relationship or Indian-American representation. And that’s not to say Dev’s parents couldn’t have been total hippies in the 1960s and are chill as parents just because they’re Indian. But there’s just no substance to Dev’s Indian identity. He talks about there aren’t people that look like him on TV and about how his script (which is supposed to be an Americanized Bollywood romcom [akin to the Americanized telenovela, Jane the Virgin]) about what it’s like to be Desi American and how no one will pick up the script because it’s brown and queer, but that’s it. It’s all like the bare minimum of the bare minimum. Just saying a character is Indian or Black or East Asian or Arab isn’t enough. There are cultural aspects and implications that differ from generic white Americans and their experience. I mean I appreciate that the novel points out the racism of Hollywood and white privilege, but if you’re gonna make the love interest a person of color, don’t make it so their character could easily be switched out with a white person without having to change anything to make the switch fit.
Overall, I think this is a cute queer romcom with great ace and mental health representation. I think it’s a decent try on the POC representation, but I’d like to see more than just “this character is not white” in future characters of colors Cochrun writes. It’s not enough to just have representation it has to be good representation. And not just physical representation it has to have the cultural rep too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Homophobia, Biphobia, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Misogyny
marvelmerlin's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Acephobia/Arophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit
sabrinalefebvre's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
4.25 ⭐️
So cute! I’m not a really big fan of the Bachelor, which may be one of the reasons this isn’t a 5 ⭐️. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself during my reading. I can’t wait to see what the author has in store for us.
So cute! I’m not a really big fan of the Bachelor, which may be one of the reasons this isn’t a 5 ⭐️. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself during my reading. I can’t wait to see what the author has in store for us.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Ableism, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Cursing, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Vomit
jenny_librarian's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
This is what One to Watch tried to achieve, with way more diversity at every level, and so much better done!
I loved absolutely everything about this book except one thing: the miscommunication. I know this is how this kind of book is supposed to go, but I just hate when conflict stems from the fact that the main characters won't just sit down and talk. And that's saying a lot, considering a lot of the time Charlie and Dev spend together is them talking...
But apart from that, the sheer amount of diversity in this book was so refreshing for this kind of romcom. We got multiple queer identities (including a whooping TWO characters under the asexual umbrella!!!), neurodivergence and mental health issues being discussed, characters of colour in the forefront of the story... It just felt so good to read!
I have to say, however, that the trigger warnings for OCD, anxiety/panic attacks and depression are major in this book. If this is triggering, better skip it altogether. They hit quick and they hit hard. One of Charlie's panic attack almost caused me to have one. Good writing, but very much triggering.
Everyone else, though: READ. THIS. BOOK!
I loved absolutely everything about this book except one thing: the miscommunication. I know this is how this kind of book is supposed to go, but I just hate when conflict stems from the fact that the main characters won't just sit down and talk. And that's saying a lot, considering a lot of the time Charlie and Dev spend together is them talking...
But apart from that, the sheer amount of diversity in this book was so refreshing for this kind of romcom. We got multiple queer identities (including a whooping TWO characters under the asexual umbrella!!!), neurodivergence and mental health issues being discussed, characters of colour in the forefront of the story... It just felt so good to read!
I have to say, however, that the trigger warnings for OCD, anxiety/panic attacks and depression are major in this book. If this is triggering, better skip it altogether. They hit quick and they hit hard. One of Charlie's panic attack almost caused me to have one. Good writing, but very much triggering.
Everyone else, though: READ. THIS. BOOK!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness
Moderate: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia, Vomit, Outing, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Acephobia/Arophobia, Biphobia, and Bullying
Minor: Cursing, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Body shaming, Alcohol, and Sexual assault
readandfindout's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
Style/writing: 3 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 2.5 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 2.5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, and Ableism
Moderate: Vomit, Acephobia/Arophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, Biphobia, Outing, and Gaslighting
Minor: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Alcoholism, and Sexual harassment
higgidigs's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A really fun romance story using a reality show and the background production of a reality dating show. With a complicated relationship between the romantic leads and good lgbt rep, while still being explicit about the fact that these characters lives and decisions are impacted by various lgbt-phobic people and ideas.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Sexual content
fromjuliereads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really loved this book! The story was so cute and wonderful, and I absolutely loved the mental health representation. I felt so seen with the rep and it was wonderful to see my mental health represented.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcohol, Biphobia, Body shaming, Cursing, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Mental illness, and Sexual content
Minor: Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
felixreads0321's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcohol, Homophobia, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Biphobia, Blood, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Sexism
greeeta's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
there is some amazing rep in this book and it broke my heart. that’s really cheesey and such but it felt so nice to read a book where i felt like i knew what the characters were dealing with. and that’s a run on sentence. also did i skip out on responsibilities? yes, yes i did.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia, Homophobia, and Biphobia