October 1, 2017
Gr 7 Up-After dropping out of high school in her senior year during her lowest emotional point, Jane Sinner is forced by her religious parents to enroll in community college to finish her credits. Armed with an acerbic wit and a desire to avoid living at home, Jane fudges a few details to compete in a Big Brother-style reality show at her community college. Along the way, she stirs up trouble for the camera, tries to figure out whom she can trust, and finds her true talents. This work is witty with a fresh narrative voice. It is rare to find a YA book that discusses faith and religion, but Oelke handles Jane's religious questioning in an authentic way. The protagonist is well developed; readers will enjoy rooting for her on House of Orange and in life. The narrative is mainly told through journal entries and script-style dialogue, and is sharp for a majority of the novel. However, Oelke's overreliance on these techniques at the expense of brevity makes the book long and repetitive by the end. VERDICT Purchase for teen libraries where realistic fiction is in high demand.-Susannah Goldstein, Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, NY
Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 15, 2017
A young Canadian woman joins the cast of a campus-produced reality TV show after she bombs out of her senior year of high school and decides to get her diploma at a local community college. The opportunity to participate in The House of Orange, a reality show that offers as a prize the car owned by the show's Korean-Canadian producer, comes at a good time for white Jane, who'd like to gain some space from her school and from her caring but unhelpful and earnestly Christian parents, who struggle to understand her. Resplendent with sardonic wit ("I'm afraid of oil spills, fascist governments and balloons that pop unexpectedly," Jane deadpans at one point in her mind during a conversation with her imaginary psychiatrist, Dr. Freudenschade), this debut novel is at turns wickedly funny and thought-provoking. Jane's remove from those around her, following a gradually revealed life-altering traumatic event, at first holds readers at a bit of a distance even though her narrative is partly told through confessional journal entries. However, the ridiculous, occasionally lewd, and sometimes alcohol-assisted antics of Jane and her competitors, including Punjabi-Canadian Robbie, for whom she develops serious feelings, are reliably entertaining and will keep readers engaged while Jane's back story slowly renders her more fully dimensional. Character-driven, humorous, and deceptively profound. (Fiction. 14-18)
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November 6, 2017
After being expelled from high school, 17-year-old Jane Sinner is taking courses at Elbow River Community College in order to complete her graduation requirements. Jane, who has never met an idiom she doesn’t want to change (“You’re meowing up the wrong tree”), also hopes that Elbow River can provide some needed anonymity. Eager to move out of her family home—where her parents believe that prayer, youth group, and Pastor Ron can fix everything—she signs up to participate in an online reality show at school. Jane enlists the help of castmate and potential love interest Robbie to devise a plan to win, but not before learning a few things about herself. Debut novelist Oelke has created a complex and entertaining heroine in Jane, who narrates in sharp-edged, caustically funny journal entries. Oelke sidesteps writing about the more difficult aspects of mental illness and recovery—Jane has little interest in addressing past actions readers gradually learn about, and her therapist exists only in her mind—instead keeping this a lighter, snarkier comeback story. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brooks Sherman, Janklow & Nesbit.
Starred review from November 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* When she's expelled from high school five months before graduation, Canadian teenager Jane Sinner finds herself temporarily set adrift. Eventually, armed with apathy and driven by parental expectations, she enrolls at Elbow River Community College to get the last few credits she needs to graduate. It's there that she sees fliers for the student-run reality show House of Orange, where six students try to outlast one another through a series of challenges. The winner gets a (used) car, but for Jane, it's a chance to start over and to surround herself with a group of people who don't know about the thing that got her kicked out of school. Plus, what better opportunity for a budding psychology major to observe her fellow humans? Dry, witty, and compulsively readable, this debut, told through Jane's journal entries, is by turns funny and truly emotional. Tough-shelled Jane is both a caustic, prank-playing delight and a deeply wounded person, and the emotional journey she undergoes rings wonderfully, painfully true. A rich cast of secondary characters and a fun peek behind the curtain of reality TVor at least a reality web seriesadds plenty of interest for aspiring filmmakers and psychologists alike, but this is an entertaining read for any teen.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)