Blair Braverman

As a person very entertained by reality TV and shows like Survivor I liked the premise of this book and I know who Blair Braverman is so I thought it would be a real winner. Sadly, it was just sort of meh.

I liked the set up but then the mysterious disappearance of the crew happens and there's some drama about being abandoned and some stuff happens but at the same time almost nothing happens. There's no explanation for any of it, the escape/rescue is glossed over and I left the book feeling like I was deprived of half the story. Just unsatisfying overall.… (mehr)

Five people set out on a reality show about wilderness survival. The narrator is a woman raised by survivalists who’s tried to find a way out, but needs money to have choices. She falls fast and hard for Ashley, who’s there to get famous. Then, a few weeks before the scheduled end, things change fast, and the show turns deadly real. It’s got a lot of sharp observations about how women manage men for their advantage and safety; the narrator is very conscious of what she’s doing but also understandably does not feel powerful in doing it. Survival, here, is not about wilderness competence but about the benefits of connection and larger human society. It ends kind of abruptly, as if Braverman wasn’t interested in the denouement, which I very much was.… (mehr)