The Villain Edit Is a Romance for Reality TV Lovers

Though reality dating shows are essentially a dime a dozen on every major network and streaming service they’re not exactly full of romantic success stories. The vast majority of couples who find one another on shows like Love is Blind, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, or Love Island don’t work out, and a large part of their contestants are usually only there to boost their social media followings and burnish their personal brands. But that most folks competing for one another’s hearts and the viewers watching at home are aware of this fact is just one of the self-aware twists that make watching these sorts of shows so fun.
Such is also the case with The Villain Edit, a darkly entertaining romance that embraces everything that’s great (and awful) about the reality television business. If you’re a fan of competitive dating shows or only just watched UnReal for a couple of seasons, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here in this journey of a woman who accidentally makes herself the woman everyone loves to hate on a Bachelor-style dating show.
The story follows Jacqueline “Jac” Matthis, a thirtysomething romance author whose career has stalled after her high-profile publishing deal goes bust. Desperate to give her career a boost, Jac decides to go on the 1, the megapopular reality dating show that offers a chance at happily ever after each season. But she’s not there to find love—-she’s there to sell herself. If she can just last a few weeks into the competition, the increased exposure she (and her books!) will receive could turn everything around for her. She’s not going to take any of the relationships that might develop onscreen too seriously, of course, and she’s got a multi-step plan to manage her image and narrative journey on air. What could go wrong?
A lot, as it turns out. The night before she’s to report to the show’s infamous villa, Jac has a one-night stand with a handsome stranger, a man she discovers the next day is actually a producer on the show. She’s drawn to Henry—and he’s really hot—but she can’t decide whether she can trust their attraction or if he’s just trying to manipulate her to get good TV. More surprisingly, it turns out that Jac actually likes Marcus, the attractive bachelor whose affections she and her fellow contestants are meant to be fighting for. And while she’s not exactly on the show to make friends, her catty commentary, brutal honesty, and refusal to pretend to be someone she isn’t has made her rather unpopular amongst the other residents of the house. PIcking up on this tension, the 1’s producers decide to cast Jac as the villain of the season, the contestant everyone loves to hate. And while she didn’t exactly sign up for this….isn’t all publicity good publicity? Even if it’s not exactly the kind she wanted?
Interestingly enough, though The Villain Edit itself is marketed as a romance and centers around a love triangle—that’s surprisingly compelling as such things go—the various love stories all take a back seat to soapy Bachelorette-style drama. Most of the book’s narrative engine is fueled by Jac’s attempts to manage both her image and the show’s producers, interspersed with snippets that show us how the outside world is reacting to her onscreen arc. Creatively recreated as news articles, blog posts, and podcast transcripts, it’s a delightfully wicked look at the manipulative heart of these shows we all love, and the ways the reality of the experience behind the scenes can be shown in a very different light to the audience watching at home.