My taste in reality TV is more Golden Bachelor and Selling Sunset than shows where women scream at each other and scratch with their fake nails. But when I see clips of some Real Housewives or restaurant servers going at it, I always wonder, when will one of these women snap and kill someone? Apparently author Astrid Dahl thought the same thing, as that’s the concept of her second book, The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey. And even if you don’t know the difference between Bravo and E, you’re going to love it.
Producer Eden Bennett has a killer idea for her reality show Garden State Goddesses – cast her naïve cousin Hope, who just married Leo, brother-in-law of the show’s star. Hope, the product of a Northern California Bible-thumping family, will be the perfect foil for Carmela, the long-nailed, hot-tempered, proud Italian married to Leo’s brother Dino, a rumored member of the Mafia.
But no one told Hope she was cannon-fodder, and she hates it when Carmela attacks her for no reason. At least the other women in the show are nicer: There’s rich drunk Birdie; bisexual Renee whose teen daughter wants to be the next Ariana Grande; and Leo’s sister Valerie. As the show takes its toll on Hope, it wears away at her marriage to Leo. But even Leo doesn’t know about the secrets Hope is hiding from her past. Will Carmela be the one to dig them up? And what happens when she does?
Wives begins with a lengthy cast list, a warning that the reader is going to have trouble keeping track of all those characters. I was confused at first, and since the book starts with a prologue from the middle, it took me a while to settle in about who was who. There are a lot of ancillary characters as well, such as Birdie’s son and Renee’s daughter.
While the tone is a little uneven, swerving from intrigue to farce, the structure matches the season of a reality show, from those fake girl trips to the on-camera confessionals. With such a sprawling cast list, Dahl does justice to the three point-of-view characters, giving depth to Eden, Hope, and Renee. Eden reminded me a lot of Rachel from the Unreal TV show that ran on Lifetime ten years ago. Beyond the reality TV genre, Eden is a stand-in for anyone who has had to compromise relationships and even personal integrity to move ahead in their dream careers.
The pacing is a little slow in the beginning, but Dahl hits her stride midway, and the deaths come fast and furious (and sometimes funny). The ending wraps up everything nicely while dangling enough loose threads for a sequel.
Reality TV fans should definitely add The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey to their TBR pile. Dahl is a talented-enough writer that Really Dead could spawn its own franchise, too.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the book in exchange for an honest review.
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