Synopsis from Book
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 number 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 gree hot-air balloon ride. That's it.
But when the cameras start rolling, Bea realizes that 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, razor-sharp debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men - and herself - for a chance to live happily ever after.
Thoughts Before Reading
First off I'm in love with this cover! This is one of June's Book of the Month books that I got and I'm actually picking it up in June!? I am so thrilled! Anyways back to the cover, I love the blue and pink, with Bea standing in the middle of all of these cameras in pink with a ring behind her back. Based on the synopsis this cover really sums up what the book is supposed to be about and overall I love this cover! It pulls me in and makes me want to read the synopsis and see if I will like it. Bright colors are my favorite, especially pink and blue so the colors alone are really calling to me.
Now looking into the actual synopsis of this book really pulls me in too. It sounds like it is going to be cute and fun, even though the book is a little on the chunky side I feel like I can really fly through the book. Let me just tell you I've already read some of it and I could not put it down! My husband actually had to take it from me so I could sleep since I was up when he got up for work. So I feel a little like crap today since I'm running on no sleep. I couldn't put this book down! Just from flipping through the pages, I see that there are tons of mixed media in it! I don't know if they are texts in the book or articles or what yet but I'm already so thrilled and can't wait to really jump into the book! I have a feeling I'm really going to fly through this book since it sounds like so much fun and I'm already in love with it. I'm planning on doing a float down the river this weekend too so I'll be able to just lay in the sun and read for a while this weekend. Hopefully, I'll get it done before I start my second class next week.
On a side note, I think this book could be used for the readathon for the Burrows, which is a cozy book. I'm really loving the way HouseCupAThon is set up because I love the teams and point system. It makes reading into a game and I love challenges like this.
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| I love the dedication that's in this book! It's so cute! |
Halfway Thoughts
I'm now a little bit past the halfway mark and I'm obsessed! I have a really hard time putting this book down! Well, let's first start with the sad part. I went on a float down the river expedition and I thought I was just gonna relax, work on a tan, and really spend most of the time reading my book. Umm, that's not exactly what happened. I had my book and I thought it would be safe in my bag. I didn't get to read any, and to add to the disaster my book got trashed! I had to let it dry out for a few days and I really wanted to go buy a new copy but where this book doesn't come out for a few more weeks I couldn't wait! My book is readable and now that it is mostly been dried out I've been plowing through it. Now that I'm reading it I don't think I'm going to get a new copy and if I do I'll buy it from the bookstore. But I love it when my books get some character like this, just not to this degree. Here's a picture of it. It doesn't even show how bad it is now that it is pretty much fully dried out. But it is a good thing that Book of the Month really makes their book sturdy!
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| It's really ballooned up now that it is dried |
Good news I didn't have the dust jacket with me so it's still in its pristine condition. I haven't tried putting it on the book yet so maybe after I'm done reading it I'll put it on the book and take another picture at the end!
So my thoughts on the actual book so far. I really feel like I resonate with this book because the way Bea talks and feels about her body is both how I feel and how I wish to feel because when she talks about body positivity and how she has learned to love how she looks is how I want to feel, but when she starts having negative feelings and feeling self-conscious that's how I feel all the time about me. So I really get how Bea feels! Ray is a douchebag! I feel so bad for Bea and wish she could move on! I really hope that she doesn't give him another moment of her time, but I feel like she is going to at least consider it once she sees that he has been messaging her! I just want her to be happy and I don't see how this book could possibly not end with 5-stars! It has to really mess up somewhere between here and the end for that because I'm completely obsessed and I love it!
*****Spoilerish*****
(Talking a little bit about the guys below)
Now for the guys, since she is technically their bachelorette. I'm so conflicted! I love Sam, but I get how she feels about a younger man. I want to like Asher since she does but I don't see the chemistry of him except that's what I'm told that's how she feels. Luc isn't bad but I agree I need more substance for him before I can really decide on my feelings for him. But I really think these are the front runners. I know Wyatt is super sweet and should be considered but at this point, I don't think she is really considering him and the same for Jefferson. I'm to the point where she just now started really trying to participate so I'm curious what's going to happen now. She is about to go on a date with Luc! I need to know what is happening here. Can you see why I can't put this thing down!? I'm obsessed and I need to know more stat!
So I gotta go and finish this book!
After Thoughts
So I stayed up until about 5 in the morning to finish this book because I just could not put it down! I love how Bea kind of went full circle in this book and I really feel the same way Bea did and I just wish I get to the point where I love me for me. So the whole entire time I was reading this book I was really connecting with Bea. I thought this book was a for sure 5-star read! Well, then the ending happened. The ending wasn't terrible. It just got super predictable, like I knew Ray and Bea's story wasn't over, I just didn't know how it was going to finish. I will say that I do like how that part of the story ended and I was screaming at Bea the whole time after he popped up because I did not want her to go back to him or end up with him! I do like how he came back into the story I think it really fit the storyline. There was never a dull moment with Bea while she was on the show! She literally had every drama that happened in the Bachelor/Bachelorette thrown at her and it really kept me as reader super involved in it. But like I said the ending really made me question what I was going to rate this book. The whole entire time I was in love with this book, I could not put it down! However, the ending fell really flat for me. I loved how she ended the show, it was perfect for her situation. At the end of the book, it does like a time jump and looked back on the popular contestants to see where they are now and I loved that too! I just honestly did not like the drama that went down in the final scene in I think Paris? I feel like it was unnecessary and even the characters explained that they didn't feel that way right after. So I was just more aggravated with it. So let's try a rating thing with this book:
Characters - 5 stars for sure!
The Beginning of the Book/Book Set-Up - again definitely 5 stars, it's what really hooked me in
Main Squeeze - Umm I think this would be 3.5-4 stars for me, I got really aggravated with some of the drama that happened here. Some of it just wasn't necessary! I got super aggravated with Lauren because of the things she threw Bea into without any idea of what was going to happen all for the sake of ratings.
Mixed Media - 4 stars, you all know I'm a freaking sucker when a book has things like text messages, interviews, emails, and so on that is typed in a different font and made to stand out in the book. I don't know why but I've always loved it! And boy did I get a heck of a lot of it in this book between the text messages, interviews, emails, contracts, and chat rooms. Even though I adore this and I loved it so much I got a little flustered with it. There were some scenes in the book that were done in this format as a reaction to the scene (usually the kissing ceremony) and I would've rather have been in the book seeing it from Bea's perspective. Later in the book, it kind of does half and half. This book is a chunker so I see why there was so much of it, and it really fits in with the book's story so I think 4 stars are really good here.
Ending/Bea's Finale - I think this is the hardest part to rate! The whole point of the book is Bea sharing her body positivity and finding love! I get it and I saw a lot of it. Even though Bea had a lot of issues while being on the show I can really relate to it because your on a show that millions of people are watching, and at least a third of those people aren't nice to you. So those scenes are very relatable for me, even though I'm not on TV or anything like that but I do feel like that all the time just on a super smaller scale, and it happened a lot. These scenes even when they sometimes got a little annoying or repetitious I still give them a 5-star, BUT the finale/ending of the book I think is possibly a 3-star for me! It's hard to explain because when I say I hated the ending it doesn't really explain it. I hated what went down with Ray, but I like how it happened, I love how the show ended, but I hated how Bea got to her happily ever after. I feel like it was meaningless because, in the end, they ended up together, they should've just talked it out. I just feel like this couple is super problematic because I didn't really see the guy she saw I guess. The guy she ended up with I didn't think she had much chemistry with or even worked well together since they were always having issues. Then the actual ending of the book does a time jump and does a where are they now thing and I loved it because it touched on all of the huge players in the book. It was a good way to end. So I don't think the ending deserves a 3-star, but it isn't a 5-star. I don't even know about 4-stars here. see this is why it is so difficult to figure out my rating for this book!
So I know all of that above is a little confusing but that is how I've been having to think when I came to rating this book. I loved it don't get me wrong, but it had its problems and those were hard for me to explain, so I thought to list it out and show where I was having issues. I honestly had no clue how I was going to write this review because I didn't know how to explain my opinions for it. So I had to do this. Sorry if it was a little frustrating or confusing.
Ultimately I ended up giving this book a 5 star. I couldn't pass up how much I loved most of this book and I really relate to Bea which is something I don't do really often. I had so much reading about her journey even though after a while it did get kind of repetitious. I struggling between a 4-star and a 5-star for this thing. The whole time I was writing this, rating it on Goodreads, and posting on Instagram about it I was struggling with that. I don't like doing half stars and it's super rare for me to do it, and this to me wasn't in need of a half star. It was either going to be 4-stars or 5-stars. Since I was so sure it was a 5-star read for so much of the book I decided that is how I was going to rate it.
Since it is still June I was able to fit this into my HouseCupAThon, I think this is perfect for the Burrow's Challenge! So here is an updated HouseCupaThon bracket so far! I'm having a blast right now. I plan on for sure completing Tom Riddle's Journal (Final Girls by Riley Sager) and Mandrakes (You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen) since I'm currently reading and listening to them both. I think I might be able to find something for Dobby, Lockhart, Fawkes, and De-Gnome the Garden. Now can I actually read them and get them done in June, I don't know but I would love to read 4 more books plus the two I'm working on! This would be a record for me so I'm going to try to make it happen. I also need to finish my Harry Potter reread that I have been working on for far too long!
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