By Lianne Oelke

This book should be terrible. The premise is that a high-school dropout goes to community college and enters the college’s “Big Brother”-style reality show, which sounds agonizing, right? I hate both coming-of-age stories and reality shows, but I loved this book!

The saving grace is Jane Sinner, herself. Told in first person through a series of journal entries, including screenplay-like dialogue, Jane has a dry cynicism that gives hard-boiled detective characters a run for their money. The publisher description compares Jane Sinner to Daria, which is perfect and also explains why I loved her so much.

So, I was definitely invested in her, but I also got so caught up in the stupid reality show! It’s relatively low-stakes since it is created by another student at the college on a shoestring budget (he is putting his 5-year-old VW Golf up as the final prize). Jane mostly signs up for the free housing.

The author does a really good job of including the mundane (but very humorous) details that really bring the characters and story to life. At the same time that Jane Sinner is trying to get her life back on the rails, the other contestants have their own motives, the producer and film crew have their ambitions, and the various staff and students of the college interact with the show in their own ways.

Basically everyone involved is flawed but also just so human that I ended up caring for all of them, even while they were all quite literally competing with each other.