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A review by houseplantz
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I am painfully neutral about this book. At this point, I could easily be swayed to either love it or hate it. I did enjoy the book. It was a quick and easy read. I am always keen to pick up books that have a more diverse representation. However, this book, while enjoyable, seemed to fall flat at every turn.
It *was* enjoyable. It was... fine.
The premise of the book, while exciting in theory, is a difficult one to pull off. Reality TV shows are hard to translate to text. I think Stayman-London did a good job with it, but having 25(ish) main love interests to start any romance off is confusing at best, and an absolute mess at worst.
I found myself forgetting which character was which OFTEN, and couldn't remember the descriptions of most of the male leads. Once they were introduced, there were VERY few clues as to what each character looked like, so it was easy to lose track. There was little depth in even the most prominent characters.
I enjoyed the book, I read the whole thing. I giggled and clutched my heart in some places. But upon finishing the book I found myself thinking... "that's it?" For such a long book, it felt like we didn't really meet ANY of the characters. We spent so long hearing about people who didn't matter and never diving deep into who did. I think that's just the nature of a book about a reality tv show.
Bea herself seemed to be a shell of what could have been. I would have LOVED to see more character development. I wanted to feel more connected with her and her love interests.
Likewise, books with this much representation walk a fine line between true representation and "checklist" representation. "One to Watch" falls closer to the latter in my opinion. Again, I think it was just hard to fit it all in and give everything enough "screen time" (pun intended). The result was a mismatch of surface-level characters with one-sentence lines about their identities that sometimes didn't come up ever again.
I think, ultimately, the premise of the book was its biggest downfall. With the number of characters and all the little necessary details we needed to keep track of, there just wasn't enough time or space to really dive deep, even with over 400 pages of content.
It *was* enjoyable. It was... fine.
The premise of the book, while exciting in theory, is a difficult one to pull off. Reality TV shows are hard to translate to text. I think Stayman-London did a good job with it, but having 25(ish) main love interests to start any romance off is confusing at best, and an absolute mess at worst.
I found myself forgetting which character was which OFTEN, and couldn't remember the descriptions of most of the male leads. Once they were introduced, there were VERY few clues as to what each character looked like, so it was easy to lose track. There was little depth in even the most prominent characters.
I enjoyed the book, I read the whole thing. I giggled and clutched my heart in some places. But upon finishing the book I found myself thinking... "that's it?" For such a long book, it felt like we didn't really meet ANY of the characters. We spent so long hearing about people who didn't matter and never diving deep into who did. I think that's just the nature of a book about a reality tv show.
Bea herself seemed to be a shell of what could have been. I would have LOVED to see more character development. I wanted to feel more connected with her and her love interests.
Likewise, books with this much representation walk a fine line between true representation and "checklist" representation. "One to Watch" falls closer to the latter in my opinion. Again, I think it was just hard to fit it all in and give everything enough "screen time" (pun intended). The result was a mismatch of surface-level characters with one-sentence lines about their identities that sometimes didn't come up ever again.
I think, ultimately, the premise of the book was its biggest downfall. With the number of characters and all the little necessary details we needed to keep track of, there just wasn't enough time or space to really dive deep, even with over 400 pages of content.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia