Week Twenty-Nine: All The Feels

I wanted to love this book. Hot Actor/Plus-Size Girl is just the sort of representation that THIS curvy girl wants to see. So when this one came in at the library, I was pretty excited to see what Olivia Dade did with it.

Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, Gods of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he's dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling.

Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit.

When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all. 

So, the good. I loved Lauren. I loved how she loved her body, how she wasn’t ashamed of it, as we so often see with bigger girls. I loved her relationship with her bestie. And I related to the way that she was always the one taking care of everyone, sometimes without even knowing that she was doing it. She was funny, and snarky. She was sharp and witty. I think that she and I would be friends, if I could convince her to burst through the boundaries of the page.

But, as her friend, I am pretty sure that I would tell her to steer well clear of Alex Woodrow.

Oh, it’s not that Alex is a bad guy. He’s not. He’s cute and funny and irrepressible. And I think that his affection for Lauren was genuine. But I never felt anything close to passion from these two. I just didn’t buy the relationship. Alex is very immature, and Lauren has the weight of the world on her shoulders. He’s a golden retriever puppy. She is a retired greyhound. And I know how badly those two mix.

Honestly, I felt more of a connection between Alex and his bestie, Marcus.

The representation was also…honestly, I didn’t love it. I get that they wanted to show what life is like for a plus-size girl, but as a plus-size girl, I could have done without the fat shaming, and this idea that she was “ugly”. Even Alex never really found her beautiful, only attractive *in spite of* her less than optimal features. I also thought that for a book that wants to show empowerment and body positivity, that we spent far too much time *describing* her body. I know that we spend a fair amount of time in books lie these talking about washboard abs, but with this character, it felt a little gratuitous. I don’t know. It just felt icky.

Having said that, the book was pretty well-written, and I was entertained. It just all felt slightly off.

If Goodreads had half-stars, I’d give this 2.5 stars.