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khsavage's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
nina_bloodsworn's review against another edition
2.0
Read via Netgalley ARC
The description sounded like an interesting fun read but sadly it didn't do a lot for me
The POVs were all over the place at times and I was confused who was POV and who wasn't - that brought me out of the story quite a few times and then the enjoyment was gone.
Although the different creatures were very fun, cute and in parts adorable (oh i want a cute Brownie), the rest of the cast was not. Sadly, I could not click with any of the "humans" and this made it quite a chore to read.
I am 100% sure for the right reader it will be a 5star for sure.
The description sounded like an interesting fun read but sadly it didn't do a lot for me
The POVs were all over the place at times and I was confused who was POV and who wasn't - that brought me out of the story quite a few times and then the enjoyment was gone.
Although the different creatures were very fun, cute and in parts adorable (oh i want a cute Brownie), the rest of the cast was not. Sadly, I could not click with any of the "humans" and this made it quite a chore to read.
I am 100% sure for the right reader it will be a 5star for sure.
joyelbe's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
detailsandtales's review against another edition
5.0
This book was so many different things, I'm having trouble describing it. It had humor and puns and fun worldbuilding, and it also had a serious storyline about self esteem and secrets and found family. I liked the "mythic" version of Hollywood and I liked the cute ways that human culture was misunderstood by the mythics. I was also really rooting for the protagonist, who was trying her best throughout. And I appreciate all of the queer rep in the story. All in all, an enjoyable read.
anjreading's review against another edition
4.0
A delightful, fun read from start to finish. Starr Weatherby is working in a diner and trying, rather unsuccessfully, to make it as an actress when she is recruited for the cast of a mysterious, weird "reality" TV show. As it dawns on her that all the strange special effects and costumes she's seeing are not actually fake and she is, in fact, starring in a show in another dimension populated by mythics, she gets caught up in the drama of the long-running cast, and is targeted for elimination by the powerful, corrupt grande dame of the show. This book made me smile and laugh the whole way through, and I really enjoyed all of the characters. I look forward to whatever Dawn writes next. Thank you to NetGalley, Rebellion, and Solaris for a digital review copy.
bexreid's review against another edition
Randee Dawn uses a unique combination of pop culture, fantasy, and humor in Tune in Tomorrow, reality TV by aliens where the contestants are human. It's an absolutely fun book that explores "reality" and how it might mean different things to different people.
billies_not_so_secret_diary's review against another edition
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Tune in Tomorrow: The Curious, Calamitous, Cockamamie Story Of Starr Weatherby And The Greatest Mythic Reality Show Ever
by Randee Dawn
Fantasy Urban Myth
NetGalley ARC
Starr moved to New York to become a star, but ten years later she's a waitress still waiting for her big break.
Then her break walks into the restaurant and she's offered to audition to be in a reality show, but not one she had ever heard of, or anyone in the human realm.
This book had a really good start, making fun of the falseness of 'Reality TV', a genre I dislike with a passion. I can go to a bar and see people being idiots, watch the news, or scroll social media pages.
There was drama, backstabbing, and a mystery, but for the 'mystic' part, a lot of those characters didn't stand out that much, and that's what I thought when I requested this book from NetGalley. And while some of the mystics were main characters, they weren't brought completely to life, but the human characters, which whom the story/reality show was about, were human.
Sadly though, for me, the writing was a little flat, as if written for kids instead of adults. There is some adult content, not graphic, so this book is not suitable for readers under 14.
But if you're looking for a medium to slow-paced read, with some laughs and the such, it's a decent enough of a story.
2 Stars
ergative's review against another edition
3.0
This was an entertaining romp about a struggling young actress (Starr Weatherby) who lands a role on a long-running soap opera for mythic creatures (fawns, centaurs, brownies, etc.). These 'mythics' love the show, because they find the petty mundanities of human existence utterly engrossing. As a conceit, it reminds me a bit of Diana Wynne Jones's Lives of Christopher Chant, in which the Living Asheth, a figurehead ruler of a magical ancient-Egypt flavoured kingdom, was utterly engrossed by the wild exoticism of the stories in in a series about a boarding school for girls that Christopher brings her. The Living Asheth is a girl, Christopher reasons, like his sister, and girls like this sort of schlock. And indeed the Living Asheth does, but for very different reasons from his sister. Humans are as exotic to mythics as werewolf vampire lover rivalries are to humans.
So, like the Living Asheth, the fawns and centaurs of this world can't get enough human schlock, and so this show has been fascinating them for literally centuries. And because the mythics grant conditional immortality to the humans who play the roles, the actors on the show have been doing their jobs for literally centuries. But all the sorts of workplace politics that come into play when a newcomer enters an established team are magnified dramatically if the established team has been in place for a hundred years, not merely a decade, so things get messy. One of the actors doesn't want Starr to join the cast; other actors have developed alliances with the grande dame of the series based on decades old exchanges of favours, and the melodramas of life imitate the melodramas of art for a while before things work themselves out in the end.
This book is an undemanding bit of fluff. There are some cute puns about television lingo, which is interpreted differently in the fairy world, and there are some lovely images of mythic locations, but the book doesn't really go very deep in anything it aims to do. In particular, there is a kind of grim, arid claustrophobia to the whole conceit that I think was not intended, but which was really hard to ignore. See, there's only a small core set of actors on this show, and a small set of crew members (who are mythics), who work with each other and see each other every day. Any human extras who are brought in for a day of shooting have their memories wiped before they return to the human world, and any of the permanent cast find themselves unable to talk about the show to anyone in the human world even if they try. And, don't forget, they are functionally immortal, so after a decade or so they have to start cutting ties with their friends and families or else their lack of aging becomes quite awkward to explain. The show makes it impossible to maintain normal human relations.
Yet, because the show likes to maintain the illusion that these are normal humans doing normal human stuff, who don't know anything about mythics, there is also strict division between the human cast and the rest of the mythic world. So people can't simply develop new connections and relations with the mythics in this new world either. They are stuck: the only people they can fully engage with are the actors and crew on the single set of this single show.
How awful. What a dreadful existence. It's presented as a lifeline for Starr, the opportunity for her to reach her fullest acting potential a world that doesn't have much use for what she has to offer (which, as far as I can tell, is mostly that she's a bit of a ham and enjoys overacting). But even though there are a few conversations about the trade-offs that actors make when they become part of this show, I think the true horror of this dull, empty life is not fully appreciated or acknowledged. To be sure, the primary villain is someone who has entirely given herself over to the show, withdrawing from the human world entirely; but then so are the primary love interest(s). (Oh, yes--there's a love triangle. Yawn.) And the only person who has managed to maintain a separate life in the human world has been able to do it for reasons that are not generally replicable.
I think this book could have been very interesting if it had leaned into the darker tradeoffs that go along with the seeming glory of a sparkling magical escape from mundane drudgery. But because it didn't, it was a bit like a soap opera itself: Fluffy, fun, but ultimately unconvincing. And that's fine. I finished it on a train. The world needs books that can be finished on trains.
NB: I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. Inasmuch as I can be sure of such things, I believe that this has not affected the content of my review
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