Dating Dramas and Artificial Worlds: 8 Fictional Books that Read Like Reality TV

This past summer saw an interesting micro-trend of a half-dozen books set in the surreal realm of reality television—mostly the cutthroat haze of dating shows like The Bachelor, but also some more experimental projects of recent memory, like the intensely discomfiting The Rehearsal. But as with all trends, this has been in the works for some time; reality TV has peppered the publishing landscape for the past few years, with more offerings no doubt to come next summer.

Fascinatingly, a couple of specific character archetypes have arisen: romance novelists acting out their own love stories for millions of viewers, jaded producers with all sorts of feelings about pulling the strings behind the scenes, and artificial humans aligning themselves with a narrative that they know to be contrived yet it’s treated as if every aspect is genuine. But even if the chyrons beneath their names might look the same, these authors take these seemingly familiar characters in wildly different directions.

And can we just get a round of applause for these titles? Love me a good pun, and these ones are very wink-wink for the diehard fans.

Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister

For Fans of: The Bachelor

So while the iconic reality motto was originally uttered on The Real World: Miami back in 1996—but also showed up on the first season of Survivor in 2000—most viewers associate it with the many reality dating shows. It makes sense; you pack twenty-odd women into a mansion and force them to compete for one man’s affection, even as they’re actually living in close quarters with one another. You can easily imagine any Bachelor contestant refusing any sense of female camaraderie with this brushoff, which is why it makes an excellent title for Jodi McAlister’s contemporary romance.

As the showrunner of Marry Me, Murray O’Connell controls all of the figurative puppet strings… except where it comes to Lily Fireball, a contestant who seems destined to become the villain of the series—in part because she and Murray used to be friends and co-showrunners. But despite all the reasons to hate Lily (and make America despise her even more), Murray can’t help but be attracted to her verve and regret their professional and personal fallings out.

Hot Summer by Elle Everhart

For Fans of: Love Island

A self-described “author of bisexual, Internet-obsessed rom-coms,” Elle Everhart takes the compulsively watchable mess of the Love Island villa and inserts a charming queer romance.

As reality TV motivations go, Cas Morgan’s are especially cunning: Friday, the dating app she works for, is secretly launching a partnership with popular reality dating series Hot Summer. Longtime fan Cas must pretend to be nothing but another single looking for love, when really she’s trying to make it to the finals so that she’ll get a coveted promotion to Chief Marketing Officer. Think Miss Congeniality but on a reality set. Then she meets fellow contestant Ada Hall, and suddenly none of Cas’ feelings are fake. The fact that she’s exhausted of hangovers and casual situationships makes it easier to be authentic with Ada, even as Friday is pulling the strings to get her into the winning couple.

The Family Experiment by John Marrs

For Fans of: The Rehearsal

John Marrs’ dystopian thrillers envision futures in which DNA tests forcibly match up soulmates (The One) and the government pushes marriage while punishing singledom (The Marriage Act). Set in the same universe, The Family Experiment puts a speculative spin on an increasing issue in our society: overpopulation makes it so that many couples can’t actually afford to start families. The bizarre solution is to raise virtual children via artificial intelligence—but to make it more palatable, the government turns it into a reality show. On The Substitute, ten couples will spend nine months raising their AI babies from birth to eighteen years in a condensed experiment—and the winning couple will be forced to choose between keeping their virtual child or erasing them in order to conceive a flesh-and-blood baby. Of course it immediately brings to mind the bizarre turn that Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal took, when he inserted himself into another woman’s experiment in child-rearing, only for him and the child actor to become too emotionally invested in what was supposed to remain a hypothetical scenario.

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren

For Fans of: The Bachelorette

The Soulmate Equation, the predecessor to this book, is more in the spirit of the series Are You the One?, what with matching singles based on algorithms. But while that book’s couple explored a relationship in the public eye via press coverage, it was nothing compared to the spotlight that’s shined on romance novelist Felicity “Fizzy” Chen in the sequel. Realizing that she’s never actually experienced the kind of love she writes about, she impulsively agrees to star in a reality dating series in which the producers cast men as swoon-worthy romance archetypes: Tattooed Bad Boy, Hot Nerd, and so forth. But Fizzy can’t really focus on her so-called Heroes because she’s too busy noticing that executive producer Connor Prince is actually embodying all of those archetypes—brilliant documentarian, caring single father, athletic soccer coach, snarky-sexy producer—in just one man. How can she resist falling for the whole (but potentially too-good-to-be-true) package?

Making It by Laura Kay

For Fans of: The Exhibit

Life imitates art imitates life in Laura Kay’s queer coming-of-age/romance about a young artist who gets thrust into the reality TV spotlight. Isobel purposely keeps her life small, living in a council flat in Kent with her mum, past issues with depression constraining the 28-year-old from putting herself out there in any form. But she is compelled to make art of her pet Abigail: knitted, painted, an ongoing attempt to capture her beloved chinchilla. The Abigail Project catches the attention of TV star Elizabeth Staggs—who grew up in the same housing—who offers Issy the opportunity of a lifetime to join Artistic License, Elizabeth’s documentary crew in London.

Inspired by Issy, the latest season will follow everyday artists using creativity as a lifeline, an idea that pits Issy against some of Elizabeth’s other art-world protégés behind the cameras. Worse, Issy must assist Aubrey, with whom she has the disastrous opposite of a meet-cute. With her world suddenly expanding, and responsible for telling others’ stories, Issy must hold onto what’s real, and the inspiration at the heart of the Abigail Project, without letting others take artistic license with her or anyone’s work.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

For Fans of: The Boyfriend

Alison Cochrun’s queer rom-com The Charm Offensive critiques the toxic masculinity of The Bachelor through a sweet romance between Ever After’s latest Prince Charming, socially awkward tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw, and his talent handler, Dev Deshpande. Dev is used to drawing past Prince Charmings out of their shells, but he’s surprised when practicing dates with Charlie sparks an attraction between them.

Now, Charlie is still wooing several dozen women on live television, so it’s not an exact match to Japan’s first same-sex reality series The Boyfriend; but Cochrun nonetheless captures the spirit of that show with her candid discussion of anxiety, depression, and fluid sexuality.

The Villain Edit by Laurie Devore

For Fans of: UnREAL

For her darkly comic novel The Villain Edit, Laurie Devore did her research into Bachelor Nation and all of its gleeful messiness, including the eponymous notion of the villain edit—that is, a reality TV star unwittingly or not being molded into the show’s antagonist. In the case of romance novelist Jacqueline Matthis, she knows what she signed on for when she joins the cast of the 1: Struggling to write happily-ever-afters for her characters, she throws herself into the charade as an attempted comeback.

The fact that she has no filter makes her a memorable contestant, even if it alienates the other women in the mansion; and her chemistry with bachelor Marcus doesn’t hurt, either. But then there’s Henry Foster, the producer Jac had a one-night-stand with before filming, and arguably the person with whom she must interact the most on the 1. As she and Henry can’t stop hooking up while the cameras are off, nor manipulating one another in the confessionals, Jac’s sound bites get edited into emotional grenades, as the producers mold her into the villain… but she still might make it to the altar with Marcus. The cynical Jac has no idea who she can trust, in a thoughtful yet skewering commentary on the dark side of dating shows. (You can see why this will especially appeal to fans of Shiri Appleby’s self-sabotaging TV producer on UnREAL.)

Made for You by Jenna Satterthwaite

For Fans of: Are You the One?

Jenna Satterthwaite herself pitches her sci-fi thriller as The Bachelor meets The Stepford Wives: Julia Walden is a Synth, created solely to win the heart of bashful, Midwestern bachelor Josh LaSala on reality dating show The Proposal. As the franchise’s happily-ever-after standards go, they seem to be in the minority of couples who stay together after the final rose, settling into suburbia with an infant, no less. Then Josh goes missing, and all of the locals who resented Julia for making him hers are ready to accuse her of killing him.

With her nosy neighbors, not to mention the small-town sheriff, watching her every move, Julia must interrogate why exactly her designer Andy made her so perfect for Josh, and if there’s something more sinister hiding in her custom programming… or if she’s been made to be framed for murder.

All This and More by Peng Shepherd

For Fans of: Trading Spaces crossed with MTV’s Made

While the premise of this thriller utilizes quantum technology to let one woman explore parallel universes, the rules are all reality TV: unhappy fortysomething Marsh is allowed to jump from one “Bubble” to the next, trying on careers and men like outfits she will discard, but there must be continuity. In comes the Show Bible, which collects her every branching path and the consequences that ripple out from each choice. Add a peanut gallery of viewers watching and commenting on her every move in real-time, and it’s enough to make even the most vast and promising Bubble feel downright claustrophobic.

A setup this trippy feels like a throwback to early-2000s reality TV, in which normal people got to switch places, transform each others’ spaces, and beg TV networks to help them achieve their dreams… then decide if the dream is better than their previous reality.