On the Plus Side

I was delighted by On the Plus Side by Jenny Howe (publication date 12/26/2023)! A romance featuring a plus-size female main character in a reality makeover show has been done before, but never incorporating the tenets of fat liberation so well.

Everly is a receptionist at a marketing firm, having landed there after obtaining an art degree. She has a barely-disguised crush on a Chris Hemsworth-lookalike coworker, but refuses to do anything about it. She lives in an apartment over her brother’s garage, and is still grieving the loss of her beloved grandmother a few years before, kind of stuck in stasis. Her brother is married to her best friend, and they are superfans of a Queer Eye-like makeover show–On the Plus Side–that is just for fat people and is not about a weight loss journey.

One day the hosts of the show appear at her office–someone has nominated her to be a guest–and she is thrilled. She’s ready to get back into her art and stop feeling and being invisible, realizing that a lot of the reason she stepped into the shadows is because of her grief. What she didn’t expect was to be seen so thoroughly–by the cameraman, Logan, who is a gruff lumberjack-type with a soft spot for old dogs.

The author uses the word fat and has a note at the beginning of the book talking about fatphobia (I use anti-fat bias but they’re basically the same thing) and how she hopes to write in a way to challenge fatphobia. I think she’s done a great job doing so, without perpetuating it. That being said, Everly’s mother is the person whose anti-fatness gives her the most trouble and the author portrayed their relationship sensitively, and included some good examples of Everly setting boundaries with her mother about what topics were open for discussion and which ones were not.

Kudos to Jenny Howe for doing this so well–I have already bought her first book, The Make Up Test, so look for a review in 2024. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.