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This is Not the Jess Show by Anna Carey
- Publisher: Quirk Books
- Genre: Mystery/Thriller
- Audience: Young Adult
- Pages: 304
Like many teens, sometimes it feels as though everything in Jess Flynn’s life has been engineered for maximum drama–from her performance at the school talent show, to the reappearance of her childhood best friend and perennial crush Jeremy, to her friends trying to set her up with one of the hottest guys in school. It’s almost as if everything might finally be going her way…until one day a tiny black phone with an apple logo on its screen falls out of her best friend’s backpack and lands at Jess’s feet. The problem is, it’s 1998, and the first iPhone isn’t due out for another nine years. Jess’s friends refuse to acknowledge the strange device. Her sister Sara, on hospice care with a terminal blood disease, for once can’t tell Jess what she should do. It’s almost as if everyone is hiding something from her. Even her beloved dog Fuller seems different…like, literally different, because he definitely didn’t have that same pattern of spots on his stomach last week… Nothing in Jess Flynn’s world is as it seems, and as the cracks begin to show, Jess will discover her entire life is nothing more than someone else’s entertainment. Except in this reality, the outside world is no place anyone would want to escape to.
“There’s nothing like tragedy to reveal the grossest sides of people.”
This is not the jess show
This is Not the Jess Show has been on my TBR for so long, and the premise was so intriguing that I couldn’t wait to read it.
This book is advertised as a mystery/thriller and while I kind of understand the mysteriousness of the plot invoking this sort of categorization, there was nothing thriller-like about it. It wasn’t suspenseful or thrilling. It’s barely even mysterious, to be honest. If it were up to me to categorize this book into a certain genre, I feel like I’d place it somewhere between comedy and satire.
Besides the fact that it took about 40% of the book to even get to the main plot, I found there to be basically no plot at all.
Having just finished the book merely hours ago, I am extremely confounded as to what even happened. What was of significance? Why did it matter? I can’t even begin to answer these questions.
I spent a majority of the book (once I finally figured out (sort of) what was happening) thinking WTF. Something major is revealed to Jess, something that basically confirms that most of what she’s known her entire life is a lie and everyone close to her has been lying to her, and she basically is like “I can’t believe they lied to me” and moves on? That’s that?
If I were in her position, I would be calling psychologists left and right because obviously, some of the people in Jess’s life are psychopaths.
So okay, Jess does wonder how people she was close with could do what they’d done to her, but why does she never think further than that? For example, the whole world seems to know about it and not care that this has been done to her. What kind of f***ked up world is she living in? Why is this okay? Why is no one questioning this?
The fact that no one asks any of the bigger questions, and acts like this kind of treatment of people and bizarre behavior is normal… That did no favors for creating a believable story. I honestly couldn’t even enjoy the story because the whole time, I felt as if it was so far removed from anything that could ever remotely happen. I’ve read fantasy and dystopian novels that were more realistic than whatever this is.
To add more fuel to the fire…
I thought Jess and some of the other characters were so overly dramatic about things, and the writing was terribly melodramatic as well. Save the dramatics for the things that actually mattered, people.
There was only one thing I liked about this book, and that was the unique twist to the love interest that we get about halfway through the book.
I think that in a better written novel with perhaps a different plot, this could’ve been a really intriguing plot element to develop more of. But that being said, even though the love interest twist was unique, I couldn’t say that what resulted was any good at all.
The characters had no depth and what characters we did see most of were shallow and melodramatic.
There was no chemistry between Jess and her love interest, nor any believable development in their characters or their relationship over the course of the novel.
Overall, I’m very glad that I borrowed a copy from the library instead of buying a physical copy first because I didn’t enjoy this book.
FEATURES
- 90s vibes
- Love triangle-ish
- Mystery to solve
- Satire
- Futuristic/Dystopian
OFFICIAL rating
This is Not the Jess Show
This is Not the Jess Showsimilar titles to this is not the jess show
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Have you ever read a book where the characters acted like ridiculous things were completely normal, and never asked any questions? Did you enjoy it, or was it a constant irritation for you as you read?
