surviving dating and adulting
Orielle Lennox has a quiet life. She has the same boyfriend she had all through high school. Her college English degree is just sitting nearby as she makes yoga videos with her sister that earns her enough money to get by. She lives at home with her parents and spends her free time working out, reading, and watching movies. Ori thinks she’s happy. But when her sister Lark questions Ori’s indifference to her own future, Ori doesn’t know what to say. Lark says that Ori can’t do anything on her own. So Ori decides to show her.
When a social media post about Survivor pops up on Ori’s feed, she decides to send in a audition video. She’s been a big fan of the show since its beginning, and she would be an amazing contestant. She’s shocked when a producer calls her to say she’s on the show, and after a minute’s hesitation, Lark makes Ori call the producer back and say she’ll be there.
It’s not until Ori gets to Fiji and endures ten days of forced isolation that she learns more about what’s going on. They’re not actually on Survivor. They’ve been cast on a Survivor-like reality show that is also a dating show. They are calling it Attached at the Hip, and the cast will be spending much of their time on deserted islands literally attached to another person, a rope going from harnesses they wear around their waists. They will be alone for three days at a time, chained to one person, and then the group will come together for a challenge. After the challenge, the remaining contestants will pair up with new people and head out to their island for another three days. This goes on until there are only two contestants left, and then they make their grand appeals for votes.
Ori isn’t so sure about this. She knew that she was supposed to be single to be on the show, but her relationship had only blown up the day that her boyfriend drove her to the airport and admitted he’d developed feelings for someone else. That was the day after her family had imploded with secrets old and new and a lot of debt. And right away, she finds herself on an island, attached to Remy, the guy she had a crush on for four years of high school. She’d been told that the producers had searched out missed connections for each contestant as well as others they’d be genuinely attracted to, but Ori never thought she’d be stuck on an island attached to Remy. Immediately, her nerves get the best of her and she starts saying crazy things. But as time passes, and they have to work together to survive the island, Ori starts to relax a little and gets to know Remy for the first time. And she does find herself attracted to him.
But then it’s time for the first challenge, and Ori finds herself chained to someone new. As the game goes on, day after day, cameras and microphones capturing everything that happens, Ori finds herself making friends and even flirting with people she’d never expected to connect with. There’s Kennedi, only 18 and taking time off from her senior year in high school to be on the show, and Osprey, a bossy Instagram parkour champion who turns out to be a fan of some of Ori’s favorite books as well as a hardcore spelling bee contender as a child.
The more time Ori spends on the islands, either with new friends or by herself for one stint in isolation, she finally takes the time to confront her feelings about her old life. She takes responsibility for the decisions she had made, the mistakes she had made, and makes a concerted effort to figure out what it is that she wants for her life. She wants to be decisive when she gets back home, chasing her own dreams instead of just tagging along with the dreams of others.
But the longer she stays on the show, the stiffer the competition gets. Ori has to fight to try to win each challenge. She has to fight to find food to eat. She has to fight to stay hydrated. And she has to fight to discover the truth about herself and about those she is closest to. But will a reality dating television show be enough to push Ori to be the person she wants to be? Or will it just leave her broken-hearted, broke, and alone?
Attached at the Hip is a clever rom com dressed up as a reality show. There are all the usual Survivor tropes—eating bugs, starting a fire, finding shelter, making alliances, and voting people off. Then there is the dating show of it, with the weird tether holding contestants together for days at a time. But these characters are strong and determined, and reading as they all played their best games was fascinating.
I had so much fun reading Attached at the Hip. While I’m not sure about the rope gimmick, I loved Ori and her journey, and some of her other castmates as well. This was an amazing ride, like binge-watching a season of a favorite reality show (Amazing Race would be my choice), an finishing up with a happy-ever-after rom com with all the trimmings. A perfect summer read!
Egalleys for Attached at the Hip were provided by Wednesday Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
