My Thoughts: Something Real by Heather Demetrois

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.


**Review Copy Received for Review**

Did you know that I can't watch reality TV? There are a number of reasons why I can't. 1) I get so stressed out, that my stomach cramps. It's silly, I know. The last time I watched Survivor was when Boston Rob was playing and finally won (Like back in 2010/2011), but it made me so sick that it wasn't going to go the way I wanted. It was then that I decided that I couldn't watch reality tv any more, and 2) I don't like how scripted and over the top reality tv is. It's so dramatic and that is not reality. Which I find really annoying. In saying that, I was really intrigued by Heather Demetrois' novel, Something Real, which centres around a family who is in the reality tv spotlight.

Something Real tells the story of  Bonnie Baker, a seventeen year old girl whose family has been in the spot light since she was born. Bonnie and her family are the stars of Baker's Dozen a reality show that follows the family around 24/7. Why? Because Bonnie is one of thirteen kids. However, the show has been off the air for the past four years and during that time, Bonnie (who is now known as Chloe) has been able to build a somewhat normal life for herself. All this is jeopardized when the cameras return and the show is brought back to life.

The whole time I was reading Something Real, I felt SO bad for Bonnie and her siblings. They were surrounded by cameras all of the time. They were very rarely granted privacy, and if something needed to be hashed out, it had to be for the viewers pleasure. For this reason Bonnie and her brother Benton do not have the kind of parental relationship that you might expect to have with your parents. This is partially due to the fact that they have not seen their father in over four years, and now their mother (who has since remarried) focuses the majority of her attention on the show and her book deals.

Bonnie has twelve other siblings, and I was looking forward to seeing how they interact with one another. But we didn't really get much of that from this book. Bonnie and Benton have the closest relationship (they are both dealing with pretty private issues that they are trying to keep out of the spotlight). I really liked their relationship. But other than that,  there was not a lot of interaction between Bonnie and the other kids. This was a little disappointing.

I have to say that there was nothing incredibly spectacular about this book. It was a good story, but it wasn't anything amazing. It was entertaining at the time, and I enjoyed the characters. I did not like the love story to much. It felt almost like instalove. Which I really hate.

Overall, Something Real was enjoyable and entertaining at the time, in a light and fluffy kind of way, it wasn't the most memorable read. But sometimes that is okay.

~Happy Reading Everyone!