I really enjoyed this second romance from Jenny L. Howe. On the Plus Side has a much different setting - rather than the academic setting of The Make-Up Test, On the Plus Side (OTPS) is all about a reality TV show that sounds like Queer Eye meets What Not to Wear meets something else entirely. The reality show is all about helping plus sized people not only find a look they love but also make progress in their careers, explore their dreams, and overall find more happiness and fulfillment. FMC Everly is a serious fan of the show, and is shocked when the famous hosts, Jazzy and Stanton, show up to surprise her at work. Everly hasn't felt like herself in a while, ever since her beloved grandmother died, and she's put herself and her dreams on hold as a result. She works as a receptionist in a graphic design firm but doesn't want to take the leap to put her actual graphic design degree to use, and she's happy to have a crush on her hot co-worker James from a safe distance and do nothing about it. She has no fat friends in real life, and the only other fat person she knew was her grandmother, whose death hit her really hard. She agrees to go on the show because she's been so impressed with previous seasons and guests, and she's ready to start thinking about her art and her future in a different way. She's surprised to see that the experience of being on the show is not quite what she expected based on her years as a dedicated viewer, but she's vibing pretty hard with grumpy camera man Logan, who assures her that she showrunner has her best interests at heart. I really liked Everly and found her really relatable. While I think the positive fat representation was really important and powerful, I also think that Everly will resonate for anyone, fat or straight sized, who has ever felt a little bit stuck and unsure how to move in the direction they want. There's a lot of fatphobia that gets dealt with here, so a content warning for that, but I thought it was handled in a sensitive and productive way.

I really enjoyed this book. I saw so much of myself in Everly, in how she felt about herself, how she dealt with her mother, how she felt at work - she’s so relatable. And who doesn’t love a lumberjack love interest? No one. Literally everyone loves lumberjacks. Yum.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

This was a delightful read with such fun characters. Everly was realistic with many insecurities and she was relatable. (I know someone who is very much like her ) Her chemistry with Logan was sparkling!
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Give me a romcom any day of the week but make it relatable and quirky and I’ll fly through it same day.
3.75 stars
The confidence factor had me a little on the fence -needing the support of another for confident and finally getting to believing in yourself.
Overall this was really cute

I loved this story! It had charm, romance, laughs and a bit of a thrill. I found myself smiling throughout and didn't want it to end! I loved Everlys character and despite her low self-esteem at times, she shined so bright! I think her character is quite relatable and readers will like that!

I really enjoyed Everly’s growth in the story. Well done. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader copy!

Thank you Jenny for this ARC. I am a huge fan of you as a person, so it’s an honor to read anything you might send my way.

On the plus side follows Everly being filmed for On The plus Side - a tv show that helps plus size woman rediscover their passions and fashion. In the process Everly realizes that maybe her favorite tv show has a few secrets of its own, and falls for its grumpy camera man Logan.

Overall I enjoyed this book. Some of the character past trauma felt a little forced or out of place, but I really like how the tv show aspect of it was handled.

📕 𝒪𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒫𝓁𝓊𝓈 𝒮𝒾𝒹𝑒
✍️ 𝒷𝓎 𝒥𝑒𝓃𝓃𝓎 𝐿. 𝐻𝑜𝓌𝑒


An overweight 20-something who’s lost her zest for life agrees to appear on her favorite reality tv show for plus sized people in an attempt to rediscover her true self and the happiness her life has been missing in this grumpy/sunshine, BBW romance.

Everly is too loud, too big, and simply too much for most people so she has been living her life in the shadows, hiding her true self away so well that now even she can’t find her. When she’s nominated to appear on her favorite reality TV show, On the Plus Side, Everly jumps at the chance to get some much needed lifestyle advice from her favorite plus sized heroes in an attempt to turn her life around and do what makes her happy. In the midst of filming, Everly and the show’s camera man, Logan, develop a mutual attraction. They both must walk a fine line in the hopes of keeping their budding relationship off the show and out of the public eye.

Written from the third person perspective and filled with valid and relatable subject matter, this one was cute and funny and will be the perfect romance for someone but managed to miss the mark for me. I typically love a BBW romance, but was put off by Everly’s lack of self confidence in this work. The way Everly attaches her self worth to someone else’s opinion of her and ultimate requires a team of people to help rediscover her lost confidence simply didn’t appeal to me. Logan, the love interest, was a likable, animal loving, plaid wearing “lumbersexual” but the romantic encounters themselves didn’t hold my interest or have me hoping for more. Ultimately, a sweet read with a cute premise but with characters I found myself unable to relate to and not enough spice in the romance to keep me invested. 🌟🌟🌟💫 (3.5/5)

At last, a portrayal of plus-size individuals that feels genuinely authentic, relatable, and sensible! The romantic aspect of the story was truly heartwarming. I appreciate how the author deftly handled weighty themes such as grief, all while seamlessly weaving in moments of levity and humor. Initially, I had reservations about the story's reality TV backdrop, but to my surprise, it was a perfect fit! I'm eagerly anticipating more books from this talented author!

This book deeply resonated with me because I shared a profound connection with the main character, Everly. Everly, like many individuals with fuller figures, grapples with the societal stigmas and pressures that compel us to conceal our bodies and wear only the limited, often dark, patterned, or baggy clothing options available in stores. This constant effort to hide our natural curves, rolls, and bodies takes a toll, eroding our sense of self and diminishing our body confidence.

No matter how much we strive to deconstruct internalized fatphobia, this aspect remains a formidable challenge, especially for those of us limited by the clothing choices offered at local stores. It's a struggle that strikes close to home for many of us.

ARC REVIEW

On the Plus Side
BY Jenny Howe

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Publishing date: 12/26/23

GOOD READS SUMMARY
Everly Winters is perfectly happy to navigate life like a good neutral paint color: appreciated but unnoticed. That’s why she’s still a receptionist instead of exploring a career in art, why she lurks but never posts on the forums for her favorite makeover show, On the Plus Side, and why she’s crushing so hard on her forever-unattainable co-worker. When no one notices you, they can’t reject you or insist you’re too much.

This plan is working perfectly until someone secretly nominates Everly for the next season of On the Plus Side. Overwhelmed by the show’s extremely extroverted hosts and how much time she’ll have to spend on screen, she finds comfort in a surprising friendship with the grumpy but kind cameraman, Logan. Soon Everly realizes that he’s someone she doesn’t mind being noticed by. In fact, she might even like it.

But when their growing connection is caught on camera, it sends the show’s ratings into a frenzy. Learning to embrace all of herself on national TV is hard enough; can Everly risk heartbreak with the whole world watching?

REVIEW:
Overall, I thought this was cute. It has a great message that is conveyed without going too deep. It tackles fat shaming and acceptance.  Something I think everyone can learn from.

When I hit the halfway point, I started to get a little bored. I think it could have been a little shorter and still accomplish everything is set out to do, but I did enjoy it!

Loooooved Logan! What a great guy! 😍 and the couple spicy scenes were nice. Pretty mild but fun!

Refreshingly real

Jenny L. Howe makes a bold declaration of independence for "plus-size" people in On the Plus Side, her story of a fat young woman learning to own the body, and the life, she has been timely inhabiting since childhood. Self-effacement, self-doubt, and self-denigration define her attitude and behavior, socially and professionally, until a body-positive reality television show selects her as a featured makeover guest. Following her metamorphosis under the tutelage of the relentlessly positive show co-hosts is an eye-opening, consciousness-raising journey for the reader as well. Howe's sympathetic and honest portrayal makes impossible not to feel with her heroine as the walls fall, and the real woman - the artist, the friend, the sister, the daughter, the lover - blooms into the life she was born to live. It's a story to make readers laugh, cry, and cheer for a fellow human being who just happens to have (among her many physical characteristics) a BMI on the high side of the scale.
This is a voluntary, independent, and completely body-positive ARC review.

Firstly I want to thank netgalley and the publishers for allowing me an ARC of this book!

2.5⭐️
I have seriously conflicted feelings about this book. I so badly wanted to like it but everything was just putting me off yet I still feel like I didn’t hate it despite all of the issues I had. This review is about to be really long because I just have so much to say and I will try to remain as vague as possible but their are some paraphrased quotations throughout so if you want the tldr I will put a summation at the end🙂

The concept of this book was fun and I appreciated the story it was trying to tell!
I’m going a little out of order with how I would usually do this for this book so I’m going to start with Logan our mmc!😀 He was from what I could tell a good guy? I don’t know because we really didn’t get to know him very well at all. We learned he loved older dogs and was super buff and always wore flannel which was painfully stereotypical of every gruff mmc written ever. But beyond that we basically knew nothing about him and what little we did learn about him felt overplayed or convoluted(ie. His ex girlfriend treated him poorly possibly but we don’t know and assumed he wanted to do film which he did want to do but also she shouldn’t have assumed ew).

Then there’s Everly. While I relate to her insecurities and wanting to make as little waves as possible in life it got to be too much. There is a line between insecurity and immaturity I felt she crossed it on several occasions. She loved jumping to conclusions, overreacting, and victimizing herself. She was also a bit delusional and not in a fun way. In the first pages of the book she basically says no one knows what it’s like to live in a world built to exclude them or make them feel wrong which rubbed me the wrong way🫤. On another occasion she claimed her friend was trying to “deny” the fact she was bigger than her because she SAID SHE LOOKED GOOD IN EVERYTHING!?! LIKE how dare she. She creates an oddly parasocial relationship with the hosts of the show. And the whole thing with James was actually so wild I had to take a pause. She accuses him of leading her on and basically blames him for HER kissing him because he was “flirting”(although she admits she could be misreading him and that they are friends before the kiss)and being friendly which was just icky. Then she gets mad at him for nominating her for the show so she can “gain confidence and move on” saying he was using it to reject her 🙄. If that’s what we(readers) we’re supposed to believe she should’ve made it much more clear he did something wrong. Everly and Logan together also had poor chemistry it felt like insta love but the love wasn’t even really there. Then they spoke in unison and that was it for me.

As for the writing I’ll try to start with the positives which is that from a lit standpoint everything was correct! The writing itself also was good in a sense that it got us from point a to point z. That being said the descriptive language used had me cringing so hard I had to take breaks. Words like “lumbersexual aura” “urban lumberjack” “woodsy metrosexual” “doggus interruptus ” used or sometimes spoken. Also the choice to be extremely descriptive of the outfits made sense because a big part of this book is a makeover. That being said the outfits all sounded like they would be worn by a middle aged mother or a middle schooler in 2016. Leopard print crop tops with floral leggings, flowery tunics and skinny jeans, statement necklaces and pencil skirts being described as “boho” was the final straw for me. To me when a big part of this is about being confident to wear pretty clothes that plus sized ppl are shamed out of wearing it’s counterproductive to dress like a middle aged mom because a big issue with plus sized clothing is that the only clothes available aren’t for younger people or trendy(which in the book she mentions wanting to find trendy clothes). Oh and don’t think i missed the part where she credited 2 white non drag related people for “co-opting” fabulous😒. Or how when everly was asked if she felt like a princess she said “no I actually feel like a badass” which is both annoying of her and weird because why is a princess not also a badass? Most of them are tbh.

moving on from all of that the plot was severely lacking. Which was ironic because Everly kept talking about how she wanted to focus on her story not a romantic one yet that’s basically all I got out of this book. Basically nothing happened even her big “art showcase” just got cancelled in the end with a 4th act random conflict that came out of NOWHERE.

Besides the dislikable FMC, forgettable MMC, and unbelievable lack of chemistry this book was just very boring and at times problematic and icky. The fashion aspect were probably the worst part to me and the conflict was ridiculous. The dialogue and writing was very cringy and it made it hard to believe it was written with younger people today in mind at all. It read like something written by someone who’s never experienced any of the things they were talking about or even researched it everything was just very unbelievable.


If you told me this was written by a man I would believe it.

A great story of strength, love and acceptance … first for yourself, then for others. A nice read and story of Everly and Logan. Nothing too surprising or out there but a sweet story and happy ending.

I personally didn't find the romance in this to be believable, but I really enjoyed the format of the book- the whole 'reality tv genre' of books that have come out lately have been so refreshing and interesting, and a wonderful add to the romance genre. It's always great to see plus sized representation in any type of media, but this one just didn't fully hit the mark for me thew ay that "one to watch" another very similar book out a few years ago, did. Also -1 point for the pro pitbull propaganda, but that's just me.

An easy five stars from me. The themes in this book were everything I’d hoped for and more. Easily one of my favorite books for all time. Thank you, Jenny L. Howe, for writing this masterpiece. What a gift to see representation like the characters and situations in this book. 5/5 for content and 3.5/5 for spice level.

Thank you to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All comments are my own.

This book was like if Pam from the Office had the love story w/ the boom mic operator instead of Jim and I’m HERE for it.

I love any book with good fat representation & this story does it SO well with a perfect blend of fat joy, growth & reflection. The main character is struggling with her identity certainly and has experienced fat shaming in her life but rather than the focus be on self hate or frustrations surrounding her fatness, it was on her personality and the fear of being too much- too loud, taking up too much space, time, etc. I loved this and it resonated so much with me as a plus size person who was constantly told I was too much.

Add in the mix an adorable and steamy slow burn w/ a grumpy cameraman on the set of a plus size reality show? I’m SOLD. Everything about this book draws you in from the very beginning and gives you a perfectly balanced heart warming story.

This was a fantastic read & I can’t wait to read more from this author!

I love the size inclusive representation in Jenny Howe's books, especially this one! Such a well rounded story, really giving insight into Everly's perspective and growth. And Logan... he's wonderful! The behind the scenes really show info also had great balance - not all good or bad. Will be recommending this one!

On the Plus Side is an enthralling enemies-to-lovers tale set in the world of academia, where characters must navigate the treacherous pitfalls of imposter syndrome. This captivating novel offers a delightful and unique perspective, showcasing how the third time can truly be the charm.

3.5 stars
I enjoyed this story, though my expectation going in (as it’s a romance) was the romance would be front and center. To me, until 50% of the way through the book, there’s barely a connection between the MFC and MMC, but the second half does lean heavy on the romance. Not to say the overall arc was bad - I also enjoyed the reality show aspect - just all together it felt a bit unbalanced (a chicklit book the first half and a romance the second)

I received a copy of On The Plus Side from NetGalley and St. Martins Press in exchange for my honest review so thank you to them both for this opportunity.

This book follows Everly, a plus size woman who has let go of her hopes and dreams in exchange for comfort and the familiar. Everly and her mother have a terrible relationship as she feels her mother has been hypercritical of her and her weight for years. She works as a receptionist and yearns for a coworker when she is an amazing artist capable of her own career that would surpass her crushes in a minute.
Everly is nominated for a plus size version of What Not To Wear/Queer Eye makeover show. Working with the shows hosts gives Everly a chance to embrace her body and her talents. The hunky cameraman behind the scenes gives her all the feels once she finds out how one sided her work crush really is.

I spent a good chunk of this book being very 50/50 about it. It felt as if neither storyline was getting enough time, is this a romance or is it a woman learning to love herself again. It wasn’t until the end of the book when Everly really began to assert herself and step into her own power that I was able to appreciate it more fully. I enjoyed this book and the journey that Everly went on to accept herself and am giving it 3.5⭐️. I will absolutely recommend this book closer to the publication date in December and appreciate the opportunity to read and review this book.