Welcome to The Fishbowl.

Anyone who knows me knows that I just adore books about Reality Shows. I am not a big fan of reality shows on tv, but books? Oh give me every book! 🙂
So when I spotted this one I just had to try it out and see if it would be a good one, and it was!

Meet Jennifer a girl living in Seattle and working her butt to get her debts paid off (I am so glad that health care is so much better here). She has a fabulous boyfriend, a pretty decent job. And then one day she gets a mail in her mailbox that makes her very tempted, an offer to join a TV show. To spend several weeks (if she gets so far in the competition) doing challenges and live in a house with several other people. Of course she is tempted (who wouldn’t). I just adored how this girl thought it over for a bit and then decided to just go for it. To try out, to see how far she would get.

We see auditions, and then we see our girl getting selected to join the show!

Sadly, her love life is pretty sucky when she finds out THAT about her sweet boyfriend. Boy, I would have kicked him in the nuts if I had found out such a thing about my boyfriend. Cheating, bah! But this gives her even more reason to go for the show. To disappear for a few weeks (at least she hopes so), to just not think about her shitty life for a while (running away is never good, but this time I totally agree with her).

The Fishbowl show is pretty much as one would expect. You have friends/allies, but also enemies. In this case that is Ariana. A girl who thinks she is all that, but who actually just deserves to be thrown into a pool. 😐 She is manipulative, annoying, icky, and more. I never once liked her, not once falling for any of her stupid tricks. If only Jen would have done the same. But no, every time that Ariana opens her mouth, is in the same room, or drools over Jen’s boy of choice (Justin). Yep. You can imagine the tension between these two gets more and more with each passing week/challenge. And for some reason Jen never comes out as a victor. Oh no. She comes out as the bad guy. Yep, that is how good Ariana is with manipulation. Though I also think it doesn’t help that Jen was so gung-ho on Ariana and her actions.

Oh and I loved that the house our contestants were in was actually kind of like a fishbowl. RIP our contestants though, as they will be bumping into those shiny glass walls more than once during the show’s duration.

The tension/attraction between Justin and Jen was just perfect and I was rooting for them to get together, though I hated the drama between them. By word, just kiss already. Just get it over with. Justin stop being such a dramaqueen and let Jen know you really prefer her instead of just hopping around with Ariana. You are not making the situation any better + you know how Jen gets with Ariana.

The challenges were a delight, I love how they were a mix between mental (puzzles) and athletic.

I had a laugh that it took Jen a while to figure out that her mail was specifically meant for her, and that others got other mails.

It was great that they added the confessionals/short pieces said by Jen and others. It just gave more insight in the show + made everything even more fun.

Birdie was definitely one of my favourite contestants. She was just so sweet, fun, and I loved how she talked in tweets. 😛 Of course I also liked several other contestants but I was mostly rooting for Birdie!

Next to Ariana, J-dawg was just a pest. Did he really think people would like this act?

When Jen found out why her popularity was so crappy I just wanted to hold and hug her. Poor girl.

I could probably talk a bit more on the book and how much fun I had reading, but I will just mention the ending. I am really happy with how it all ended. What Jen did was great. Plus squeee!!!!

All in all, I would recommend this book to everyone looking for a fun reality show read!