Reality Check

Ah, early Jen Calonita is not great. This one was written a little after Sleepaway Girls, which I think is the only other non-series book of hers I've reviewed. I really enjoyed Belles and her later work, but you can tell she was finding her footing as an author with these early ones. 

I don't remember much about Sleepaway Girls, but from my review, it seems I liked some of the characters. That's more than I can say for this one. 

Reality Check is about four teens from Long Island. Apparently, they're from the more small beach town side than the richy rich side. Main character Charlie (Charlotte) is working in the small cafe in town when she's discovered by a tourist that turns out to be a reality TV producer. Said producer wants her and her three besties to star in a cute, down to earth reality show about small town life on Long Island. 

Yeah, that won't end badly. 

The girls start fighting almost immediately. Charlie's love interest doesn't want to be on camera. One of the girls pulls away from the others after catching the attention of the rich girl she's always wanted to be like. Then the girls start to realize that they're being manipulated by the execs and forced into dramatic scenes and fake dates. They team up with their producer, who's the underling of the one who discovered them, and mastermind a live show, then use that as a platform to expose how they were treated and how scripted reality is totally fake. 

A quick look at the cast and then we'll be done with this review. 

Charlie: She's a Type A who loves to organize things, but she's also a goody-goody. She's likeable but also pretty bland. Black hair. 

Brooke: She's a farm girl obsessed with people not thinking of her as such. Social climber. Wants designer clothes and gets them at outlets. Wants equal screentime with Charlie and can't stand the fact that Charlie was picked to be the star and she wasn't. Once they're filming, she catches the attention of Marleyna, the Paris Hilton-esque rich girl Brooke has always idolized, even though Marleyna was a bully to her when they were kids. Brooke is a thoroughly unlikeable character and drops her friends in favor of reality TV and how she thinks it can get her away from the farm forever. 

Hallie: The gorgeous boy-crazy one. She's tan and brunette. I feel like they wanted to make her more than just white but didn't. She waitresses at her parents' popular seafood restaurant on the water. She really has zero character aside from this. She's likeable, but you don't get to know much about her. 

Keiran: The blonde. She has younger siblings she's forced to babysit for a lot and the execs want her off the show because they say her life is too boring. She feels like the smart one, except I do think she's a pushover when it comes to her free time. She's making several thousand per episode. Pay for a goddamn babysitter yourself and have some alone time. If your parents are too busy to parent, they shouldn't have had that many kids. I liked her the best of the four, but like Hallie, you don't learn much about her. 

The most likeable character in the book is Zac, Charlie's love interest, who's smart, funny and not interested in fame one single bit. 

Overall, this book isn't good. It's not a total waste of time, but it's not well-written, the characterization is weak, and there are rookie mistakes like putting Hallie in a totally different outfit two pages after she was described wearing something else. The outfit descriptions are unnecessary and don't work as well as they do in series like The Clique, It Girl and Poseur. They're clunky here and they tend to be repetitive. It's not horrible, but I've read a lot better YA girl drama books. The best thing about it is that they used Pullips as the cover models.