There’s nothing real about reality TV.Seventeen-year-old Bonnie™ Baker has grown up on TV—she and her twelve siblings are the stars of one-time hit reality show Baker’s Dozen. Since the show’s cancellation and the scandal surrounding it, Bonnie™ has tried to live a normal life, under the radar and out of the spotlight. But it’s about to fall apart…because Baker’s Dozen is going back on the air. Bonnie™’s mom and the show’s producers won’t let her quit and soon the life she has so carefully built for herself, with real friends (and maybe even a real boyfriend), is in danger of being destroyed by the show. Bonnie™ needs to do something drastic if her life is ever going to be her own—even if it means being more exposed than ever before.
My Review:
I flew through Something Real because the story was so compelling that I could not put it down. It really hooked me from the first chapter when Chloe/Bonnie found out that the show would be coming back into her life.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
I love how this book really showcased the negative effects that the fame from the reality show had on Chloe's life. Her name was Bonnie on the show, and she felt like she had to create a whole new identity and name that was the real her. She wasn't really the girl on TV, but at the same time, she was. That probably sounds really confusing. After Season 13, she was so glad that the cameras were out of her and her family's life. The show ended because she took a lot of pills to try to kill herself. Then her mom and stepdad decide to start the show again when she is seventeen. I cannot understand why they would do that after what happened when Chloe was thirteen. Anyway, once the show starts again, Chloe's life is no longer private. People at school find out that she's Bonnie from the shows. The paparazzi chase her and her brother when they go to school, though they have to leave them alone once they are on school grounds. Chloe is the topic of both tabloid articles and online blog posts, though they use the name Bonnie, of course.
Familial relationships are important to the story of Something Real. Many of these relationships are not very good, for example, the one between Chloe and her mom. She is mad at her mom for forcing her to be on the show, and her mom refuses to budge. She will not let Chloe choose to not participate in it. She doesn't see how the show is hurting her daughter, because she is too busy being wrapped up in her own fame to notice anything else. Kirk, Chloe's stepdad, does not help. He is on the same side as her mom, and he supports having the show, and being a part of the show. The strongest family relationship that Chloe has is with her brother, Benny. He and she are always there for each other, and they are each other's strongest support in any family issue. Benny has a boyfriend, Matt, and Chloe is very supportive of this relationship.
There is an adorable romance between Chloe and a boy named Patrick. Patrick is a really good guy. At the beginning of the book, he likes Chloe, before he knows that she was the girl from the reality show. The good part is that he doesn't stop liking her once he finds out that she was on the show. He is there to continue supporting her when the show comes back into her life, even though it could bring unwanted fame into his life as well. He is such a great boyfriend for Chloe. They have some interesting experiences that involve avoiding the paparazzi so that they can see each other.
The references to 1984 fit perfectly with this story. In Chloe's and Patrick's government class, they were reading 1984, with Big Brother always watching everyone in society. Both the TV show itself, and the paparazzi are the Big Brother in Chloe's life. They are there watching, not leaving her alone to just live her own life.
If you like YA contemporary, read this book.
Katie
