There's a truly fantastic book critiquing reality TV called Reality Bites Back by Jennifer Pozner. I found this book by Dr. Danielle Lindemann and I hoped it would be similar but more up to date. True Story has pros and cons. I definitely give the edge to Pozner. Lindemann spends the first few pages of every chapter doing a recap of sociology 101 for each topic, which is simultaneously basic enough to be insulting and lengthy enough to feel annoying. It's nice to have a comprehensive and up to date survey of reality TV; yet at the same time there's simply not enough critique. I hoped for more. ( )

Well, that's two books that turned out to be duds after listening to interviews with the authors on the MAJORITY REPORT podcast (at least with Elizabeth D. Samet'S LOOKING FOR THE GOOD WAR, it got me interested in George Washington, so I picked up Ron Chernow's biography recently at Barnes & Noble).

I'm not a fan of reality TV, so I was hoping TRUE STORY would criticize that waste of entertainment, but she's actually a fan. Though the book isn't all bad. She brings up Karl Marx several times, which in my mind is always a plus. And she did bring up a few examples of how reality TV is a mirror of our society.

Like a lot of nonfiction, TRUE STORY would have made a better magazine article than a book. ( )