Ever wonder what Lori’s favorite dance move is? Curious about Nicole’s favorite candy? Dying to know Kevin’s favorite hairstyle? Well, these and many more equally deep questions can be answered in Alison Pollet’s new book “The Real World X: Back to New York.”
Pollet has authored several behind-the-scenes books for MTV, including MTV’s “The Real World New Orleans — Unmasked” and “Real World Hawaii: True Confessions.” If the titles sound like smutty romance novels, that’s a fairly accurate description. Whatever talent Pollet may have as a writer, it isn’t exhibited in this book.
“The Real World X” begins with biographies of each of the seven cast members, explaining very important details of their day-to-day lives on the show. The biography on Lori contains useful details about her “Real World” experience.
“My hair started thinning. I don’t know if it was a reaction to the stress or what. I already have really thin hair, and my scalp just shines through,” she said.
The next page has all the other roommates describing their feelings about Lori. To her credit, she seems to have made the fewest enemies in the house. Pages 34-35 show how the cast felt about their controversial roommate Nicole:
“She holds grudges,” Lori said.
“I’m scared that once she sees the show, she’ll hate me,” Rachel said.
“She’s antisocial,” Mike said.
Not to pick on just one castmate — the entire book has the “seven strangers picked to live in a house” bashing each other. And when they’re not bashing each other, they bash anyone else who comes into the house.
There are at least six full pages dedicated to Jisela, a cast member on “Road Rules,” the sister show to “The Real World.” Now, this girl isn’t even a roommate in the New York house, yet she seems to be a focus in this book, and I’ll tell you why: The girl is drama with a capital “D.” MTV’s “Real World” Web site calls Jisela “a one-woman ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video” — and that’s the truth.
That appears to be the point of this book, though — to reveal behind-the-scenes drama, as if there wasn’t enough shown in the episodes. Pollet goes on for pages about who slept with whom, who had crushes on whom and who badmouthed whom.
But who cares? A longtime fan of the show myself, I can honestly say a book like this makes me never want to watch it again. It is full of so much useless, uninteresting information, I was sick of it before I hit Page 10.
Listen to Chris Kula, the Daily Arts Editor for the Michigan Daily News, writing last year about “The Real World New Orleans — Unmasked”:
“I kept waiting to be swept up in a storm of fire and brimstone, because if this book exists, surely the apocalypse is upon us.”
As big a fan of this show as I have considered myself to be, I certainly concur.