Emily: It’s time for another installment of YA book club, and this month, we’re talking about This is Not the Real World, Anna Carey’s sequel to This is Not the Jess Show, a book we covered for a previous YA Book Club blog post. And we both really liked that one a lot, so we’re back here for round 2. 

For those who weren’t here for the first round, This is Not the Jess Show is a sort of Hunger Games meets The Truman Show type dystopian YA story where our main character Jess doesn’t realize she’s growing up on the set of a ‘90s-themed reality show. In the first book, she breaks out of the TV show and enters the real world. But as the sequel title suggests, Jess heads back into the fake world of the ‘90s TV show in This is Not the Real World. Her goal? To basically infiltrate the show from the inside. 

This is sort of unprecedented for us because we have, in the past, read books that have sequels. But I think this is the first time we’ve actually gone on to read a sequel for the book club. What do you think it is about this series that made us want to dive into book number 2? 

Mary: Like you said, we loved This is Not the Jess Show, both for its attention to detail in its setting and the overarching plot. I think that if I enjoy a book that much, it’s worth moving on to the second one! To me, these books are both fun to read, and that’s not always a guarantee. I was especially curious to see how Carey was going to keep the ‘90s theme going in a sequel after the big reveal of the first novel, and she definitely didn’t disappoint me.

Emily: Yeah, I have to say I was relieved Jess was going back to the show for this second book, because what was most interesting to me in the first book was the set of this ‘90s reality TV show. I was less interested in Jess existing in the real world. We did get a little bit of her coming to terms with modern technology which was fun. Like getting a cell phone for the first time and navigating social media. But yeah, the fake ‘90s set with all of its nostalgia? That’s what hooked me in the first place. 

Mary: That’s true—and it’s cool to see how the book is really set in the near future. Some of the tech that people have access to sounds absolutely wild! I think showing the advanced tech alongside the ‘90s stuff made for an interesting expansion on the first book’s setting. How does Jess knowing that she’s on a TV show change the context of the novel? It definitely has a different vibe than the first one. 

To me, Jess sees everything in a different light, and the things that once seemed so cool to her are now kind of dated and strange. Plus, after she leaves the show she has access to all sorts of technology that isn’t available on set. There’s a juxtaposition between Jess’s new life and her life on the show that adds another layer of interest to this follow-up. 

Emily: Totally. And like I said, I did enjoy how she’s on the set of a ‘90s show, listening to ‘90s music, but also navigating being a celebrity on social media for the first time. It was sort of interesting because her journey with social media kind of reminded me of Britney Spears. Follow me here. As much as we all like to make fun of social media for being terrible, celebrities are now able to curate their public image in ways that have never been available to them before. The show has a certain way they want Jess to appear, but through social media, Jess is able to reveal to her fans how trapped and upset she is about what’s happening on the show. Not unlike what Britney was able to do on social media in real life. 

Mary: That’s a good point. Jess grows a huge following and becomes social media-savvy very quickly, which was impressive (and kind of unbelievable) to me. I enjoyed the book enough that I kind of glossed over her expertise quickly. I think something like what’s happened with Britney Spears is more likely—she hasn’t had access to her social media (fully) in so long that now she’ll just post any wild thing, even if it’s kind of cringeworthy or risqué. She didn’t have that period of her teens when she could make those mistakes while being less in the public eye.

Emily: I will say though. Let’s talk about the nostalgia in the first book vs. the nostalgia in the second book. So much of what I loved about the first book was the parts that actually felt like the ‘90s. Of course, nothing in the new book felt authentically ‘90s because we knew right away that it was all fake. To me, that made this book just a liiiiittle less fun that the first one. 

Mary: I agree. It wasn’t, like, less fun enough to make me not enjoy it, but it did lose some of the magic. That being said, I don’t know what we could’ve done in the second novel except go back to the TV show. That was the big draw of the first book, so we have to find a way back in. I’d be curious to see where Carey goes after this. It reminds me, like you said at the beginning, of The Hunger Games. The second book is basically like the first, but bigger, then the third had to do something different, take the characters to another place so to speak. 

Emily: If Anna Carey does do a third book in this series, I really hope she thinks of something more interesting to do with it than what Suzanne Collins did with the third Hunger Games book because damn that thing was boring. Sorry, I had to get my dig in there. 

Mary: Then again, there was a nice meta commentary on ‘90s stuff that I enjoyed. Since Jess has lived in the outside world for months, and since she’s now a fully-aware cast member with backstage privileges, seeing how the show was filmed is really interesting. There’s essentially an entire fake town with a system of connected passageways for cast members and crew to travel through (a la Disney World). It was definitely cool to see a different perspective of the show we saw from the inside in the first book.

What did you think about the scale of the producer’s plans? I was kind of blown away by how deep the TV show’s implications went. Like, you can just get people arrested and put away when they don’t agree with you?

Basically, Chrysalis, the producer, had a much more powerful hold on the cast than readers might have initially thought in This is Not the Jess Show. Even outside the show, she had Sara (Jess’s TV sister and real life friend) and her mother arrested in order to keep them quiet regarding details of the show. That kind of power off the set seems massive.

Emily: Yeah, I guess when I was reading it, I didn’t really think twice about it. She just seems like a really powerful person who is able to get things done. She has friends in high places. But the implications of that are pretty scary. How realistic is that, do you think? And if it is realistic, then… should we be more scared of the things we watch on TV and the people who make them?

Mary: Should we be scared of The Bachelor?? Lol.

Emily: Based on how little they seem to know about what they’re doing this season? Probably not.

Mary: There’s also sort of an underground resistance movement to help “free” the actors on the show because of how horribly Chrysalis treats them, and it seems to have started on an online message board, which is, if you ask me, very late 90s/early 2000s. I had a hard time believing that Chrysalis—given how deep she had her hands into everything—wouldn’t have followed along with the group’s plan.

Emily: Maybe the message board is just so outdated that Chrysalis didn’t even think to look there.

Mary: Entirely possible. Or she thinks it’s beneath her.

Emily: I feel like we should also talk about how the romance plot gets developed in this second book. Because the #1 reason she heads back to the show is because they essentially kidnap Kipps. In the first book, we got a little bait and switch because it seemed like Jess was going to go for the boy next door, but then she ended up going for Kipps by the end of the book. In this one, she and Kipps are basically in love and happy and doing it. Good for them. Did we feel like this romance worked?

Mary: I was into it for the most part! It seemed accurately immature at times, and then very sincere at other times. I was really moved by Kipps wanting to get Jess her dog from the show back. That did a lot to endear me to Kipps. At the same time, I got the feeling that like, this all wasn’t going to work out for them? It felt like a teen love story that is nice while it lasts but isn’t going to take them to adulthood, but that’s okay. I think both Kipps and Jess have some nuance that many YA books don’t provide their characters. I felt like I could accurately see their motivations for everything they did. 

Do we want to rate this book? 

Emily: Let’s do this.

Mary: I gave it 4 stars. I liked it a lot, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t have that certain something that the first book had. It’s hard to put my finger on it, though.

Emily: I also gave it 4 stars. I think, as I said earlier, I just really missed that genuine ‘90s nostalgia feel because I am terrible and I fully want to just fondly think about the ‘90s. That wasn’t really the point of this one, and the first one really leaned into that, at least for the first half. Still a great book though. And I would read another! Just saying, Anna Carey. Just saying.

Want to tell everyone what we’re reading for August?

Mary: Absolutely! We’re talking about The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes. I don’t know a lot about this one but the cover and title have me ready to read it. Join us next time as we plunge back into the real world!