Based on the cover, I had high hopes for this book. Alas, when Savvy’s asshole boyfriend dumps her at the very beginning of this book, saying he needs to “upgrade” from her and calls her out for being fat and letting herself go, I got a little nervous. Desperately hoping that this would be a book about a fat FMC loving herself just as she is, I had hoped this wouldn’t be about the FMC using the ex-bf’s hurtful words as an impetus to change her whole life. However, following the breakup, Savvy gets a haircut, starts working out, changes her eating habits and while none of that is egregious on its own, having it be inspired by the thoughtless, hurtful words of an ex partner, does not send a great message, that being that in order to feel worthy of being loved, requires one to be fit or skinny.

I don’t normally love books that focus a lot on diet and exercise and cheat days and all that. There’s quite a bit of that in this book. But that would even be ok had it not been so intertwined with what prompted it. Had Savvy decided, unprompted by her ex’s hurtful words, that she wanted to be healthy, fine, I’d have accepted it. But doing it because of him, because she wants to make him have regrets, didn’t make me feel great.

Secondly, calling this a rom com feels far fetched. The romance is very light, so much of the book is about Savvy and her friends and the tennis and the yoga and the cooking and it really feels like the romance takes a back seat to all of it. I very much like Spencer and Savvy as a couple but I don’t think the romance between them drives the plot of this book. The driving force of the book is about Savvy making changes in her life and deciding what she wants and deserves and going after it. Spencer just happens to be one of these things. I honestly feel like her friends feature as much if not more than the developing relationship between Spencer and Savvy.

CW: fat shaming, diet talk, exercising and complaining about not losing weight

As a curvy girl i adore everything this book stands for. Savvy is a pleaser, she does and does and does for everyone around her and finds herself in a rut. Her long time boyfriend shows his true colors which sends her into a quest to find herself. I obviously hate the ex but I LOVE the journey she took for herself in this book. It can be overwhelming to come out of a relationship that leaves emotional scars but with her girl gang, her family, new friends, and a new man by her side Savvy learns to trust and love herself. Her ability to step out of her comfort zone regularly in the story were endearing and her ability to make a stand was empowering.

On top of all that personal growth this book was sexy and steamy and displayed what real love and confidence in a partner can look like. Savvy deserved all the good things that came her way and wow Spencer is mega book boyfriend material. I love his quiet pursuit and his determination to make sure she knows with his actions and his words.

Taj McCoy is a force to be reckoned with. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Please for the love of all the women out there that will read books like this…stop. The dirt, the feeling bad for themselves, the exercise habits. There are real reasons that your body doesn’t do what all these diets say it will so see a real doctor that specializes in this to learn. For this novel, the character is just one of those stereotypical women that are too fat and isn’t strong enough to get the real help she needs so the book is just filled with a bad story.

Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell is a heart warming story about love and loss. While it begins with heartbreak, it becomes a story about (re)discovering our passions, friendships, and changing the way we think about ourselves. I loved Savvy - how could I not? Not only is she an excellent cook - my mouth was watering! - she so clearly loves all her friends and family. But Savvy has to figure out who she is. The limitations she has to impose and the habits to create a happy well being.

While her makeover starts as being motivated by her plan for a 'revenge body', it pretty quickly morphs into something else. Savvy realizes - separate from her ex - how she's lost some of the passions in her life, the confidence in herself, and her curiosity. Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell centers around her journey. And I loved every page. She doesn't sugarcoat it. Finding confidence in ourselves is hard.

I was not prepared for the delicious food descriptions. Yum! Savvy was such a wonderful heroine. Career oriented with an inherited passion for cooking, I really enjoyed her journey of finding happiness within herself.

Dumped by her downright awful boyfriend, Savvy now has two priorities: snag a promotion and attain a revenge body. I must say, this story focuses heavily on Savvy exercising. There's numerous lengthy scenes of playing tennis and doing yoga, which were fantastic at highlighting her absolutely amazing, supportive girlfriends, but it slowed down the story a bit for me.

While the romance is not a focal point, it's very gentle and sweet. Spencer, who Savvy comically mistakes as a homeless man initially, is a contractor with a heart of gold. I really enjoyed the kitchen renovation storyline and also the support his character provided Savvy as she learns to celebrate her beauty, exactly as she is.

Fun and relatable main character. I especially liked the contrast between the jerk guys and the nice guy. More women need to not put up with men who treat them badly, and it is good to see a book addressing that.

I'm a little on the fence about this book. Taj McCoy *writes* wonderfully and compellingly but there were some issues with the plot that I'm not sure I can get past.

As a fat person, any story line that revolves around a fat woman wanting to change because of a man is usually a big red flag for me. Our MC wants a "revenge body" and empties out her pantry so she can "eat clean" (implying that there is dirty food??). Savvy eventually wants to become strong for herself, but the subtle diet lingo and initial unhealthy workout habits made me cringe. There's a difference between pushing yourself and punishing yourself. I ended up skimming large sections of the book - there were quite a few scenes and characters that felt unnecessary to the plot.

There were some genuinely fun moments in this book, the food sounded absolutely delightful, and I really loved Spencer and Savvy together, but can we please de-tangle ourselves from diet culture and internalized fatphobia?

3.5 stars

Main character Savvy is likable and realistic -- she veers between being confident and capable and wise to being insecure and overwhelmed. She has a strong support system between her raucous and loyal girlfriends and her parental uncle and a work boss who is unusually fair and caring.

As the book opens, Savvy's boor of a boyfriend is telling her he's moving on, seeking an "upgrade" and mentioning that Savvy's weight is a deal-killer for him. The big question is why she feels so bad about getting rid of this loser and continues to feel bad as she runs into him and a new girlfriend practically every time she leaves the house.

She has vowed to be kind to herself and whip herself into shape, emotionally, employment-wise and physically. Her job success is a huge deal to her because of pressure to be stable financially from her mom.

Her big issue seems to be balance. She is trying to undertake a fitness regime, remodel her house, take care of her uncle, spend time with friends and be a workaholic at the same time. Everybody can identify with that, but nobody has that many hours in their day.

A pleasant read – Savvy manages to achieve some of her goals and adjust the rest in a meaningful way. Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for my advanced e-copy of this novel!

This book I had a hard time getting through, I just felt bored and wasn’t really into the characters that much.

What I did like:

- the diverse cast of characters
- Savvy grew as a character & had learned to accept herself and love how she currently is by the end of the book
- her supportive group of friends

Overall, I just felt the story wasn’t that unique but I could appreciate what the author did with it, maybe it just wasn’t for me.

Unfortunately this romance didn't do it for me. I thought the writing was a little immature and I just didn't feel connected to Savvy. I was also extremely put off by her self-hate thoughts and didn't feel like a lot of them were even necessary. The sex scene was a little cringey imo; I just didn't feel the chemistry like I should have.

(Also, as an aside, MIRA books don't open properly on my Kobo and it makes the reading experience less than satisfying. It's impossible to change the font size!)

This was an enjoyable book which is about a hardworking women whose life falls apart after her boyfriend breaks up with her and decides to get her life back together. I really enjoyed this book as McCoy did such an amazing job with blending in a hardworking women into a contemporary romance story. McCoy writes her main character with everyday struggles that readers can relate to and I'm here for all the healing. She did an amazing job with writing the story from the beginning to the ending. This book deals with stress, getting a healthy life balance and self care. I felt connect to this book in so many ways that's hard to describe. With that, McCoy did an amazing job with the pacing, story plotline and capturing my attention from the first chapter.

The main character in this book is Savvy which is such a hardworking person and struggles when everything around her goes wrong. I love how she works through her problems by taking it one step at a time. I felt connected to her character and also she is a plus-size idol! She had a great character development and let me say that I'm proud for who she has become. Our main side character is Spencer who is the mistaken homeless guy but actually her carpenter which I thought was hilarious. He’s such a sweetheart and super caring. There are other side characters in this book like Savvy's friends who were so supporting that I wish they were my friends. There is also the romance which is steamy and I label the trope as enemies to lovers (not intense enemies to lovers) and “I work for you” romance.

The ending was just great and I'm so happy that I read this book. It was just so well done and I just enjoyed the story. I absolutely had no problems with this book which is why it get's its perfect stars. I'm hoping to see more contemporary romances from McCoy because I will totally be reading it. I recommend this to fans of How to Love Your Neighbor and When Sparks Fly.

I really enjoyed this story! Savvy was a fun and joyful main character to follow through the story. I loved her friends, her family, and the romance of the book. I was a bit turned off by how romanticised the “revenge body” plot was throughout the book. While characters were particular about reinforcing that skinny does not mean valuable, I felt like Savvy had not internalised that by the end of the book. Other than that this was an extremely fun and enjoyable book.

I enjoyed reading this book and loved the plot. It was a great beach read that I brought on vacation!

I had high hopes for this book because I'm always excited to read a romance book with a fat lead, especially when they are BIPOC since we aren't usually the leading lady. Unfortunately, this ended up having a lot of focus on Savvy getting a "revenge" body after her ex shames her for gaining weight. This book is marketed as a Romance but that part of the plot took a backseat and was very slow. Instead, McCoy takes us through Savvy work and details every workout with her friends.

The tennis scenes were long and tedious for me. The book spent way more time describing Savvy's tennis moves than it did with anything else. I ended up feeling bored "as hell." Savvy's ex-boyfriend was also in the book too much, in my opinion.

Most of the characters were kind of one-dimensional, including her love interest. Spencer seemed like a nice character but we barely get to know him. He was just the "homeless" guy *cringe* who can build nice things and show Savvy his appreciation. For some reason, the "joke" about Savvy thinking he was homeless kept coming back throughout the book. It was awkward, rude, and just not funny.

Overall, the pacing was slow and the plot had too many points without enough depth. The one thing that I was happy to see was the representation and supportive friendships. Savvy is fat and mixed (Thai-American & Black) and Spencer is Black.

This was an okay book but I wouldn't recommend it or read it again.

*Added note: The audiobook doesn't really help either...

I wanted to love this book, but I had to DNF at 50% and I’m sorry for that. This book was triggering to me while i’m on my own journey for self love. I think I understand that this book is supposed to show the real side of this journey, but it focused so much on diet and exercise that it was beginning to feel like the only way Savvy would end up loving herself in the end was if she made it to her health and fitness goals, instead of just learning to love the body that she has because of all it has done for her. The way that food was talked about in this book was upsetting to me with the “food as a reward” mindset for “being good.” I would like to think that by the end she realized she doesn’t need to lose weight to have any sense of self love, but with the direction it was going I’m not so sure which is the main reason I had to DNF. I also wasn’t a fan on how much focus the side characters were starting to get half way through the story

This was not a romance book and the publisher did a disservice to the author for marketing as one.

Read this book for the self love and healing journey. Savvy is so many of us and she’s an amazing protagonist.

If you go into this book thinking it’s a romance you’ll be highly disappointed. There a romance elements and a subplot but we don’t get dinner with the guy till past 50% into the book. There are a few steamy scenes that are brief and sexy.

While this book lacked on the romance it didn’t lack on the love. This book has a wealth of love in the form of cooking, family recipes, friendships, and most importantly self love. There’s so much that Savvy is navigating like the rest of us that truly remind you to take a breath and think about what you really want. Savvy is learning to love herself, mind, body, and soul and we go on this journey with her. I loved Savvy and loved the female friendships in this book. I loved the body positivity she eventually reaches and so much of her inner dialogue with her body is so familiar. The fat rep was done really well but there are some hard parts to read so readers beware.

A thoroughly enjoyable story about a plus-sized, workaholic who gets dumped by her jerk ex and decides to start taking better care of herself (for herself). What follows is Savvy's own program to improve her fitness through yoga and tennis (activities she enjoys) and making better decisions about food. I really loved the focus on self-improvement and self-care for one's own happiness, not to impress a guy. Savvy has a great group of supportive friends and Spencer is such a great book boyfriend with an adorable dog. Definitely a wonderful open door romance debut you don't want to miss, especially for fans of The fastest way to fall by Denise Williams or Out of the blue by Alison Bliss . Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance review copy!

Full disclosure - I didn’t finish this one. I read about 3/4 of it before I finally put it down for good. I was expecting a book full of accepting yourself and body positivity but instead there was a lot of talk about losing weight and meal plans and exercise routines. Savvy, after getting cruelly dumped by her partner of many years, sets out to get her Revenge Body. Maybe at the end she does realize that if she is happy and healthy, a thinner body doesn’t matter? I hope so but I couldn’t get past all of the other stuff to get there. I gave two stars because the developing relationship of Savvy to Spencer is sweet and there is some cute dog content.

Lizzo was the sound track in my mind as I read this novel. Savvy Sheldon was a strong, amazing, incredible female protagonist. She also had many of the same insecurities and revelations about self and strength that I've had in my own mind as a plus sized reader. While I may not have "agreed" with every single plot thread, I like that while heartbreaking was the impetus for change, Savvy focused on self improvement and found a new confidence when she realized she was worth the investment. She didn't need to change and she definitely didnt need tk change for a man... but her attitude and outlook changed and I loved that her friends were there every step of her journey .

I wanted to love this book. I was so excited that it was written by a debut author who it states is “committed to championing plus size Black stories.” That’s so beyond fabulous. So I was shocked at all the diet culture and fat phobia that was present in this book. Calorie counting, waistline watching, hard core working out, clean eating etc. and it was never portrayed as a bad thing. This was so disappointing and potentially triggering. Which is a shame because I loved Savvy, her friends, Spencer and her work issues.