This book was not a fun romance but a depressing romance with literary fiction elements. I did enjoy the setting though, it was entertaining to me.

Alright, this is a bit of a bummer, but this book didn't totally work for me. I'm all about supporting entertainment with plus-sized characters, but there are some issues with this that tempered my enjoyment.

I liked the FMC well enough, but it's critical that you love her character to enjoy this story. No one else is really developed and the romance is a B plot at best. And for her character, yeah, she's quirky and amusing, but her emotions are all over the place and she's kind of shallow. She talks sooooo much about fashion. Like listen, I've been working from home since 2020 and now exclusively wear leggings and hoodies. Reading paragraph upon paragraph about what she's wearing was a little tedious for me. So if you don't care about her character, you're not really going to enjoy her journey.

The overall arch didn't make sense to me either. Or at least her emotions. Maybe this is indicative of the author's background, but each chapter reads like a personal article. There's a situation that's usually related to her being fat, the character feels badly about the situation, she has some kind of inspirational "call to action" moment, overcomes the situation, and then all of that is undone in the next chapter when she mentally starts over with the next situation.

The narrator was fine. Didn't add anything, didn't detract anything. No issues with her. She did a good job with the quirky.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ALC.