This book had me SQUEALING. Absolutely adored it! Crystal and Scotty are just… perfection. The enemies turned acquaintances turned pining turned lovers ? I ate that shit up

Ok, this took a little while to get into. I nearly gave up a few times in the early pages. But, it definitely grew on me! I took a little while to warm to any of the characters but once I did things got more fun. Light, witty and a slightly quirkier premise, a pleasant way of spending an afternoon (better than the gym anyway!).

I really liked this book! I loved Crystal and I thought her character boasted body positivity and confidence, all the while she was self-conscious at times. I found her so relatable and so apt for modern social media influencers. Her and Scott's banter and relationship was also super cute and I loved seeing them blossom together. Also the side characters, especially the grandparents were just so wholesome and lovely. 100% recommend.

I absolutely loved Set On You, it is ranked right up with my favourite rom coms of all time and Amy Lea is an auto read author.

I am genuinely not even exaggerating. Set On Youwas adorable, hot and real. It promoted body positivity and shone a spotlight on social media toxicity. If you know me, you know I love when romances cover important issues and this was no different.

I loved Crystal (although the name Crystal gives me weird vibes), even though she was way too active for me, a certified couch potato. And Scott was a hot fireman. Need I say more? Ok yeah he had layers and we loved him for it, but 🚿
(iykyk)

Anyways, I highly recommend this to all romance lovers and gym freaks, because it’s a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me!

Thank you to @netgalley and @amyleabooks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

One of the purest rom-coms I've read in a great deal of some time. Although if a romance set in a gym and with heavy themes of diet culture is triggering I'd be very careful with this one. I enjoyed this a lot though I did have to set it down a time or two to work through my own issues.

an enemies to lovers trope all based in the gym that also has a message around body positivity. It was good story and an enjoyable comical romance. What disapointed me was that they went from enemies to lovers way too quickly and not enough of the enemies gym wars. it was cute to see them be friends and develop their love for each other but I was enjoying the sparring between these two and definitely think they could have had a longer more drawn out battle before declaring their interest in each other....although the gym bathroom hotness was a good teaser but even that fizzled and so became a much more PG rated romance.
I did enjoy the banter and the cuteness of these two together and it is a good book... I'm just being picky on the way I would have preferred it. They so should have messed with each other and had a few more nearlys in the gym before it became friendly

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is such a great feel good romance. It focuses on acceptance with your body and your self. As a curvy girl myself I found myself connecting so much to Crystal and the stigma that is placed on curvy girls and that we all have to look a certain way. It’s okay to break out of that mould. And breaking the stigma of counting calories and obsessing over the scales. The fact it also includes a sweet romance just makes this book even better. Starting off as rivals and slowly getting to know each other, and then falling in love! One of my favourite romance tropes!

I adore the message that Amy Lea is putting across in this book. I need more like it!

A curvy biracial body positive instagram influencer and a hot stranger that looks like he just walked off the set of a marvel movie - sounds perfect right? I thought so too, unfortunately it just fell a little bit flat for me. Not good, not bad just average!

It started off really well with the banter and the back and forth in the gym but it turned from enemies to friends far too quickly for me. I think I would have definitely enjoyed it a lot more if we had more of that tension for longer.

It wasn’t badly written, it was very easy to read so I would definitely read another book from this author, I just needed a little bit more from this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Loved it!! The perfect romance. Had me laughing and crying! And so empowering too! I love Scott!! Perfect book boyfriend! And I love that it shows texts and Instagram posts and comments and articles too. It really broke up the story and made it easier and more fun to read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
thank you to the author (Amy Lea), Penguin Publishing and NetGallery for the e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What can I say about this book? I started reading this arc in the biggest reading slump ever, but god did it deliver?!

Amy Lea has hit it out of the park with her debut novel following an enemies to friends to lovers romance, which had me laughing out loud at some moments!! The characters were relatable, the writing was easy to read and to follow along and the romance was swoon-worthy!

Would 100% recommend and will deffo be buying a physical copy to add to my collection when it’s out!

A fave quote:
“Sorry, but size doesn’t define who we are. i don’t live my life thinking about my weight all the time. People of all sizes have varying degrees of confidence. Look at my girl Lizzo.”

And probably my fave line EVER in a book:
“He’d be sweet to your mom and then ravish the shit out of you in the bedroom.”

This is going to blow up I’m sure! The perfect mix of witty, cute , hilarious mixed with unapologetic self love, this was a joy to read 💕

Crystal’s determination and confidence was infectious and inspiring to read, and I absolutely loved her as a protagonist. It was great to see some diversity in the type of main characters without there being a ‘but’ or the implication that they needed to change themselves in order to be worthy of love. What a great message, more of this please!!

Although I did expect there to be more romance than there was, the message and story landed regardless due to the brilliant writing style of the author.

A fab light feel good read to add to your list!

Full of all my favourites in a book - enemies to lovers, banter, close-knit family as well as bi-racial and plus size rep! This was such a fun and hilarious read and although the female main character got on my nerves quite a bit sometimes, it was still a fab ride to be on. I will give my soul for Scott and I will definitely be reading more by Amy Lea!

So this is a weird one for me because I liked the characters and I liked some aspects of the way their romance unfolded - but the start of the novel where they're irritating each other didn't work for me - and some of the resolution of it didn't work for me either. But in between there was flirty, romantic fun with a main character who has more going on that just the romance, and a hero who is just about adorable once you find out what he is really like. Also I really liked the extended families. Will watch out for more from Amy Lea.

Set on You is a warm, cosy romance following Crystal, a fitness influencer and Scott, a firefighter, she meets at the gym. Firstly, I loved that the author wrote about the flaws within the body positivity movement. Overall though, I found Scott to be a touch bland? There’s nothing wrong with him, I just didn’t think he seemed nearly as fully realised a character as Crystal so while the romance is sweet, it wasn’t that moving or emotional. I also had some issues with the pacing, but this comes down to taste and I personally prefer slowburns. Not an all time favourite but a nice read nevertheless!

I loved this book so much. It has everything I love in a romance story and more.
The connection is so reliable and just warmed my heart.
The chemistry is heating my kindle and their push and pull is hilarious.
Talk about a mending family members as well.

A perfect romance that sizzles with fire sparks.

Listen I usually run from anything that mentions exercise, but a gym enemies-to-lovers book? Catch me sprinting towards it!🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♀️

This book was so funny and so entertaining. We meet Chrystal Chen who is a biracial curvy fitness instructor, who promotes living a healthy life but also loving yourself no matter how you look. Currently recovering from a break-up, the gym is her haven- until Scott aka squat rack thief, sprints in and steals more than just her favorite exercise spots.
Starting of with a strong antagonist vibes, these two see each other at the gym daily and along side the pure annoyance they feel for each other, there is some 120kg heavy attraction building up.

Amy makes us sweat by serving us a beautiful slow burn romance blooming between these two, jam packed with hilarious quips, some cringe and LOL worthy pick up lines and the absolute AWW moments of seeing those two strong well developed characters slowly break down their walls and allowing each other in.

Although I am an absolute sucker for romance, I appreciated even more that this book also revolves around friendship and family, and how important hard work is. So many serious topics like cyberbullying, racism,beauty-standards, anxiety and learning to love yourself were addressed so sincerely and respectfully it made my heart swell.

My second favorite part I have to mention is that the MC sister is a BOOKSTAGRAMMER! That audio : damn, is this freaking play about it went off in my head every time she talked about books🤣 I adored this!

Overall I absolutely loved it. I was all here for all the laughs, romance,and also all the stressful and emotional parts.
The writing style is absolutely what I look for in books so I will be picking up a book from Amy again soon in the future!

Firstly I’d like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for the e-arc ❤️🥰

Whilst she’s at the gym a mysterious Liam Hemsworth lookalike steals Crystal’s station and, bingo!! It’s love/hate at first sight 😏❤️

Crystal, a beautiful, curvy and strong influencer and Scott, a fiercely loving and flirty fireman’s will they/won’t they relationship coupled with dealing with body confidence, body positivity, bullying on Instagram, racism make Set on You a fun and fluffy but also a super serious read all rolled into one, unfortunately for me and despite the moral and important meaning of this book being such a great one, I just found it a little samey.

I didn’t really enjoy Crystal as a character and I found her really whiny. Scott, her father and their grandparents, however, I feel totally made the book for me 🥰🥰 I really enjoyed every one of them and how they balanced her out.

If you like a little insta-love and enemies to lovers then give this a go, it’s a cute quick read, and Scott is sexy af ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you so much @penguinukbooks for sending me an eARC of Set on You by Amy Lea to review!

Trigger warnings listed at the start of the book: fatphobia, cyber bullying, references to racism, fitness/diet culture, and cancer.

Review:
Our main character Crystal Chen is a curvy fitness influencer and PT using her platform to encourage other women to feel good about themselves too.

The banter between Crystal and the love interest AKA Squat Rack Thief was brilliant and had me chuckling throughout. It was also great to see some open and frank communication between this pair about their feelings. Don’t let the cute cover fool you - there was also a fair bit of steam in this book and these scenes didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that Crystal’s curvy in a way some books do that can end up feeling kind of performative, mentions of her curves were there in the descriptions of her body but she was still just her and I liked that.

My favourite side characters were Crystal’s sister and meddling grandma. There were so many funny moments thanks to these characters and other family members that added a lightness to the book outside of the flirty banter from the main couple.

Crystal’s journey to true self respect and acceptance was beautiful and so relatable. I think everyone will be able to relate to the overall message that we’re all deserving of a respectful relationship with our bodies and sense of self.

Something I feel should have been in the TWs for this is the mention of Harry Potter. It’s not in a positive light but depending on the reader this could be upsetting. For context it’s the name of the love interest’s adopted dog and he didn’t want to change the name and confuse the dog. I think there were good intentions here given the obvious disapproval of HP from the characters but personally I felt like it didn’t need to be included at all or, if it was there because the author was trying to make a point about not supporting it, that the conversation on the topic should have been more than a couple of lines.

Read for:
• Curvy influencer female lead 📱

• Message of body and self respect 💜

• Gym nemesis, to friends, to lovers ❤️

• Firefighter male love interest with cheesy pickup lines and an endless supply of clementines 🍊

• Meddling family members (on both sides)

• A grand gesture with firefighter helpers 🧑‍🚒

Rating: 4.5/5🌟
Steam level: 3/5🔥

Set on You by Amy Lea
4.5/5 ⭐️

Happy Publication Day @amyleabooks !
&&
Thank you to @netgalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was fresh and hilarious, had the perfect amount of steam and still managed to imprint about a dozen wise and wonderful messages onto my heart 🥺

We really went through it all with our MC Crystal. The amount of growth and development we got to see was incredible, especially when it came to identifying patterns in her own behaviour that were holding her back from opportunities she was so worthy of.
I appreciated her self-awareness and the boundaries she set for herself along the way and also— how much I just wanted to be her friend!

What I liked:
👯‍♀️ Underlying show of positive female camaraderie. We love women supporting women (and we love the ultimate message of ‘body acceptance’ 👏🏽)
🐩 A cheeky, meddling ‘Grandma Flo’ and a repellant, lizard-tongued lap dog named Hilary (LOL) that I could not get enough of
🫶🏽 Relatable characters, epic banter and FUN plot
👨‍🚒 A new book boyfriend to add to the collection that takes the cake when it comes to communication, mutual respect, patience and a genuine kindness that made me smile from ear to ear

What I didn’t like:
✨Honestly, next to nothing.
While I normally am not a huge fan of pop-culture references, I found that eventually I got completely on board with them and could appreciate how much they added to the story!

Set on You is an incredible debut novel, one that I will definitely be holding close as a comfort read.

Set On You is a fairly sweet romcom which mostly takes place--wait for it--in a gym. It's marketed as an enemies-to-lovers romance between our main character, Crystal, who is a body-positive fitness influencer on Instagram, and Scott, a sexy fireman who has become her gym rival.

Overall, it's a cute story, and I enjoyed having a gym setting romance with a more diverse cast (Crystal is half Asian and plus-size/curvy), and the main MCs have good banter dialogue, which was really fun in parts.

However, I hesitate to agree that it's an enemies to lovers story as the actual enemies part is very weak and jumps straight to instalove. The initial friction between the two happens very fast and quickly moves into friendship and then the relationship. You may wonder what causes the initial enemy part. Scott stole Crystal's preferred spot at the gym...Yeah.... I had to remind myself that Crystal isn't a teenager but is nearly 30 years old.

Romance wise there is a spicy locker room scene very shortly after, but the romantic tension dips and doesn't really recover, and a lot of it has to do with Crystal's own personal issues, which cripple the romance throughout the book.

In fact, most of my issues with the romance are with Crystal as a character in general.

Crystal at times comes across as hypocritical and judge-y despite her "love yourself and your body" rhetoric, and seems to instantly try and find the worst in everyone. Such as spinning this wildly disproportionate image in her head that Scott is horrible (again, he "stole her spot" at the gym and was rude to her) and made it hard at times to root for her.

When they do get together, it doesn't improve much as now she's paranoid that he's stringing her along, will cheat on her (since her ex used her as a rebound before getting back with his ex), is lying to her, or thinks people will judge her for dating a hot guy as he's clearly out of her league.

Scott is okay, but he really comes across as just too perfect and not believable. He always says the right thing at the right time, is just such a good moral person, is hot (as are all his friends) and generally is more of a prop for the story than a developed character.

Other issues I had with the book, which were mostly pet peeves, where it felt like the author was trying too hard to be relatable; the MCs' references to boomers and millennials, being obsessed with Instagram and social media stalking people, the texting and YouTube video transcript parts, name dropping current TV shows, movies, songs, singers, and so on.

At times, the author even attempted to write in which gifs the characters used in their messages, which made me *gif of Michael Scott from The Office grimacing*. The author mentioned so many times what brand of workout clothes our MCs were wearing that I did wonder if the book counted as a product endorsement and was sponsored, and how meta that would be.

Crystal is an influencer on Instagram, which is fine but the book seemed to take all the annoying things about influencers and amplified it. She spends the whole book talking about her body positivity campaign, stressing and crying over it, only to change her platform at the very end after going viral from body positivity to...body positivity lite? It felt like a weak resolution and I didn't really understand what this really accomplished for her character or the plot.

Overall, it was an alright read, and I think other readers might enjoy it more without the same issues I had, since a lot of it was a bingo of all my reading pet peeves.

[This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.]