Fans will devour this addictive, indulgent, and crafty appraisal of one of reality TV’s biggest successes.
Dishing on The Bachelor, the wildly successful reality show franchise.
A true devotee of the show—“thirty-two years old, single, and Tindering up a storm”—Los Angeles Times writer Kaufman divulges her lifelong obsession with happily-ever-after romance and recalls when she wrote a weekly recap column, created an e-mail discussion group, and even hosted viewing parties at her home, where some of the bachelors themselves made special guest appearances. Though all of the show’s participants sign strict nondisclosure agreements, her book features a collective of past bachelors—and bachelorettes—willing to comment. Kaufman combs through the extensive and gritty entertainment career of Bachelor creator and producer Mike Fleiss (who declined participation) and profiles former co-executive producer Lisa Levenson and producer Michael Carroll, who were known for manipulating contestants using “emotional leveraging” tactics to capitalize on their psychological highs and lows. Kaufman provides a quick but astute history lesson on matchmaking shows like The Dating Game and Love Connection. She writes smoothly and readably on the Bachelor’s regimented casting process, the “ironclad twenty-seven-page” participation contract, and all of the juicy dish and dirt on the series (behind-the-scenes antics, “date pitches,” racial tokenism, Fantasy Suite dates). A random array of celebrities contribute personal opinions, including comic actress Amy Schumer (previously pursued to become the Bachelorette), who criticizes the lack of variety of female body types; reality buffet leftovers Heidi and Spencer Pratt, who used to live-tweet during the show “until it became an unsafe environment”; Donnie Wahlberg (“look, I cry at weddings”); and Diablo Cody (“I think the reason a lot of us enjoy watching it is because it makes us feel superior”). Now costing $2 million per episode to produce, Kaufman acknowledges that the series remains both a primetime gold mine and, artificially induced or not, an extreme cultural fascination for die-hard romantics of both sexes.
Fans will devour this addictive, indulgent, and crafty appraisal of one of reality TV’s biggest successes.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-98590-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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