Rating: 4/5 owl hoots
Published: January 9 2018
Number of pages: 416
Format: ARC
Publisher: Clarion Books
Genre: contemporary
Audience: young adult
Get it at: Chapters Indigo
Shelve it at: Goodreads
Summary:
Recently expelled from high school, Jane Sinner grudgingly enrolled into community college, a situation made slightly more bearable after joining a reality TV show. House of Orange is her chance to start over and show everyone what she can do to win a free car. And no one in community college knows what she did in high school so that’s a bonus.
Jane can settle for HOO’s growing fanbase and whatever her Psych course can teach her, to prove to the world or at least the viewers that she has what it takes to win.
My Review:
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
An advanced reading copy was received by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Following Jane Sinner beginning her reality TV show life in a house shared with other college students was unbearable at first, but with a few tricks up her sleeves and a lot of patience and to win a free car, she damn went all the way through with the competition. There were a few setbacks (well, okay more like mental breakdowns from the stress of being on live TV and everything else that was going on in her personal life) but with her motivation to see through to the end was all she needed to keep going, along with the support from her sister, friends, and her new fanbase.
Before House of Orange Jane has had to go through a lot of shitty things in her life, most of them dealing with the state of her mental health. Before House of Orange she was expelled from high school, her classmates and teachers talked and treated her differently like she was some fragile and delicate person who was about to break into pieces, her parents are very religious and at one point, she started questioning her faith and wondered if God really was looking out for her. This led to a personal crisis and an expulsion from school, and if things didn’t take a turn for the worse, people all around started to pity her which is something that Jane cannot stand.
Trigger warning about depression and suicide. Now who says that writing a story about a character undergoing depression has to be well, depressing? With Jane’s sarcastic and dry humour reading this was worth while and truly enjoyable. I’ve never read a story written in a journal format before, but this style was appropriate because it really gives us an in-depth point of view of Jane’s character, with everything going on in her life and inside House of Orange told only in her perspective. Speaking of reality TV, when you have cameras on and on you the whole entire time you’re living in the same orange house with the same people everyday, and having to share everything with them including food (yikes) it’s hard to have your own privacy. Most importantly, there’s the constant feeling of being watched by hidden cameras in every room, so you’re always feeling self aware of how you act and behave because once it’s on camera, everyone is going to see it, kinda like having Big Brother watching you over your shoulder. This is one of the challenges for Jane during her first month in House of Orange and it gets really interesting how she adjusts to her new life inside the house. She manages to ‘survive’ the competition with some tricks, like that psychological experiment she used on Marc, her housemate for stealing her food in the fridge; the things she used to manipulate and put fear into him was too funny!
When out of the house, she is off camera Jane Sinner. The Jane who is trying to keep together her friendships in high school after she got expelled, while figuring things out with her parents and sister, and her new friend and housemate, Robbie. What turned out to be a competition to win a free car turns into a hell hole for awhile as Jane tries to adjust to her life inside the House and in community college, while trying to get her shit together including with herself. After her suicide attempt, Jane has had to endure people feeling sorry for her and she’s sick of it. She wants to change what people think of her, of how she thinks of herself and prove to everyone that there is more to her then they know, so Jane decides to go on reality TV, not only because it’s fun and she wants to win, but also because she wants to be somebody different, not the Jane Who Killed Herself or Jane Who Got Expelled from High School, but a different Jane. So she puts herself on the spotlight, playing the games and following the rules, and eventually she finds more about herself then she realized. In the end, Jane makes a big decision in the final game which changes the competition but also helps her realize what is important to her.
I haven’t read a really good contemporary YA story in a long time so this makes up for it. If I had to describe this book in one sentence, it would be Daria meets The Bachelor (inside joke!) But seriously, if you’re like me who hasn’t read a good contemporary YA book yet, then pick this one up.
PS: Thank you to Lianne for signing my ARC!
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