Amy Lea is a Canadian bureaucrat by day and a contemporary romance author by night (and weekends). She writes laugh-out-loud romantic comedies featuring strong heroines, witty banter, mid-2000s pop culture references, and happily ever afters. When Amy is not writing, she can be found fangirling over other romance books on Instagram (@AmyLeaBooks), eating potato chips with reckless abandon, and snuggling with her husband and goldendoodle. You can find Amy online at AmyLeaBooks.com.
Curvy fitness instructor Crystal Chen built her career by shattering gym stereotypes and mostly ignoring the trolls. After her recent breakup, she has little stamina left for men, instead finding solace in the gym—her place of power and positivity. Enter firefighter Scott Ritchie, the smug new gym patron who routinely steals her favorite squat rack. Sparks fly as these ultra-competitive foes battle for gym domination. But after a series of escalating jabs, the last thing they expect is to run into each other at their grandparents' engagement party. In the lead-up to their grandparents' wedding, Crystal discovers there's a soft heart under Scott's muscled exterior. Bonding over family, fitness, and cheesy pickup lines, they just might have found their swolemates. But when a photo of them goes viral, savage internet trolls put their budding relationship to the ultimate test of strength.
Set on You does so much well, it's hard to figure out what to talk about first! First and foremost, this is a love story. Not just a love story between the main character and her love interest, but also a story that explores the love between families (both chosen and born into), as well as the love one holds for oneself. Lea focuses on each equally, creating a story that's well-balanced. The relationship between Crystal and Scott is hilarious, as they start as enemies, then become friends, before ending up as lovers, all through an arc that progresses naturally. Their banter is so much fun to read, and multiple times I caught myself smiling because of how funny it was. Crystal and Scott's relationship is incredibly compelling, and I found myself cheering for them all the way until the end.
For Crystal, her relationship with her family is just as important as anything else. She lives with her sister as she overcomes her horrible breakup with her fiancé. Crystal takes her grandmother to her doctor's appointments, and has a true heart-to-heart with her father over the course of the novel. Some of the moments where Crystal interacts with her family are some of my favorite spots in the novel. The moments are truly full of love, and it feels like a true family is right there in between the pages. They all were real to me, as real as my own family, and it's because Lea masterfully builds relationships between the family members where they love one another, but are also frustrated with one another like a real family.
Of course, social media plays a huge part in Crystal's life and in her relationship with Scott. One of my favorite elements of the book is how it showed text messages, instagram posts, and comments from social media. Multiple times, I found myself reaching for my phone and wanting to follow Crystal's account, before remembering it was all fictional, much to my disappointment! Lea does a great job building this world of social media around Crystal, and the narrative of body positivity that ends up getting rewritten by the end. I am someone who is definitely not a size 0, and so I found the times Lea dove into the discussions of body positivity and self-love and self-acceptance to be just wonderful. I've never read a book that handles these topics with such candor while also championing curvy bodies the way Lea does, and it was a breath of fresh air. Not only do these discussions appear in Crystal's narration, but also in her social media posts, so we get the full look at her Crystal grows and how her social media changes throughout the course of the novel.
Lea has another book lined up titled Exes and O's, which follows Crystal's sister Tara and Scott's best friend Trevor on their journey to love. After Set on You, I'm definitely interested in checking it out! Until then, you can find Amy online at AmyLeaBooks.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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