Booklist Review for SOMETHING REAL

Here's the review from the April 1, 2014 edition of Booklist:

 
 


 

Bonnie™ Baker had been on the reality show Baker’s Dozen her whole life—until it folded after Bonnie’s suicide attempt four years ago. Since then, the family has started over in California (Bonnie’s dad has left

and her mom, Beth, has remarried), and Bonnie, now Chloe, is incognito. It even feels safe to start a relationship with her crush, Patrick. Then, a shock! Beth reups Bonnie and her 12 siblings for a new season—Baker’s Dozen: Fresh Batch. Books about kids on reality shows are a recent minitrend, but firsttime novelist Demetrios does a particularly good job of capturing this phenomenon, wrapping it in both sleaze and excitement. Bonnie and her gay brother, Benton™, are the focus, and their considerable anguish, especially when it comes to paparazzi and missing-in-action parents, is palpable. Meanwhile, Bonnie’s romance with understanding Patrick is so sweet that readers won’t mind that no such teen boy exists in reality. Interview transcripts and episode excerpts heighten the “reality” of this smart, funny book that kids will binge read, sorta like watching a Teen Mom marathon.

 

--Ilene Cooper







Pretty nice, huh? :) 

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