you gotta kiss a lot of men to get to the frogs

Grace Lambert has an important job. She and her team are saving the Southern Mountain yellow-legged frogs from extinction. She is a serious scientist and doesn’t have time for social media or dating. The rest of her family, however, are all influencers. Her mother is a design influencer, her father a yoga teacher, and even her two brothers are all over TikTok and Twitch. Grace doesn’t really understand it all, but then, they don’t understand her work in conservation.

Around the time that Grace finds out that her lab is losing funding, her mother’s interference comes to call. Literally, a producer from the reality dating show Love Shack calls her up to say that they had a contestant bow out at the last minute, and they are accepting her application. Grace is confused, as she never applied for the show. She’s never even heard of it. But when she learns about the six-figure prize that comes with winning, she is interested. In fact, she’s a little desperate. This may be her only shot to save her lab, and to save the frogs she’s spent so much time on.

Grace turns to her family for help, and they are thrilled to be asked. Her brother sets up social media for her, even setting up a GoFundMe, so people can donate directly to her lab. Her mother takes her shopping for clothes, insisting on some sexy dresses for the show. And her best friend promises to take care of things at the lab while she’s gone and sneaks a burner phone into her luggage.

She shows up to the set with a single suitcase and a confused expression. Grace hasn’t even seen an episode of the show, so she doesn’t understand that everyone will be trying to pair and up and find love. She doesn’t understand that if she doesn’t, she’ll be sleeping in the rundown shack in a far corner of the yard from the mansion with the beautiful, comfortable bedrooms. She doesn’t understand that she signed away most of her rights for the next few weeks in the contract that the pushy lawyer insisted she sign. But she has a production assistant named Blue who is kind and compassionate, and he helps her get settled in and ready for the first day of shooting by the pool.

Grace knows that she’s not on Love Shack for honorable reasons, but the frogs are worth the trouble. So she lets them put fake glasses on her. She lets them call her Sexy Scientist. She lets them cut up her favorite one-piece swimsuit so she looks sexier. But she doesn’t just do whatever they say. She is quick to stand up for herself and talk back to the producer. She’s also willing to talk back to that snarky lawyer who sent her the contract. In fact, she likes yelling at the lawyer. But she is surprised at how young he is. She pictured an older man, away in an office. Instead, Andrew is a man handsome enough to be a contestant, and he’s there on the set with Grace.

But Grace is there to flirt with the contestants, who are not the lawyer. And she’s there to compete with the other women, but when she talks to them she finds that they are really sweet and makes friends with them instead. And when the first episode goes out to the public, Grace is voted the audience favorite. But she underestimates the effects of the sexy challenges and the unlimited liquor, the pressure to date people she would normally say no to, the exhaustion of long days of shooting and sleeping on the floor of the shack. And she greatly underestimated the effects of one hot lawyer on her plans to win the whole competition.

But when the producers ask her to betray a friend to stay in the game, Grace has to decide what’s really important to her. And when she inevitably screws it all up, she has to figure out how to keep her lab, keep what’s left of her integrity, and maybe even try to keep the love of a good lawyer.

Reality Bites is a hilarious rom com about the dangers of reality television. Set in the world of a Love Island type dating show, this novel is a modern-day look at relationships and how they can transform us. From a former television sitcom writer, this look at love and family is inventive and laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s genuinely hard to put down. I am not a huge fan of reality television, but I have become a big fan of novels about reality television, and this one is excellent. Charming, amusing, warm, and sexy, and with an ending that will make you believe in love. Perfect summer reading.

Egalleys for Reality Bites were provided by Harper Perennial through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.