Rowena’s review of You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle.

For the rest of the world, the movies are entertainment. For Justine, they’re real life.

The premise was simple: five kids, just living their lives. There’d be a new movie about them every five years, starting in kindergarten. But no one could have predicted what the cameras would capture. And no one could have predicted that Justine would be the star.

Now sixteen, Justine doesn’t feel like a star anymore. In fact, when she hears the crew has gotten the green light to film Five at Sixteen, all she feels is dread. The kids who shared the same table in kindergarten have become teenagers who hardly know one another. And Justine, who was so funny and edgy in the first two movies, feels like a disappointment.

But these teens have a bond that goes deeper than what’s on film. They’ve all shared the painful details of their lives with countless viewers. They all know how it feels to have fans as well as friends. So when this latest movie gives them the chance to reunite, Justine and her costars are going to take it. Because sometimes, the only way to see yourself is through someone else’s eyes.

Smart, fresh, and frequently funny, You Look Different in Real Life is a piercing novel about life in an age where the lines between what’s personal and what’s public aren’t always clear.

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for quite some time now. I remember the first book that I read by Jennifer Castle. It was about a young girl who lost her entire family in a car accident and at the time that I was reading it, my Mom had died and I was going through the same kind of emotional drama that Laurel was going through so I connected with Laurel a lot. I wanted to read this book because I enjoyed that one but I wondered if I would connect with Justine in the same way that I connected with Laurel.

And I did.

This book had the same kind of feel as The Beginning of After, the way that the story kind of slowly unraveled but I enjoyed the journey that we go on with Justine, Felix, Nathan, Keira and Rory. I thought each character was unique, different and memorable and I really enjoyed getting to know them through their individual stories.

What I found most interesting about this book was the concept of the movie deal that the five kids parents signed them up for. A documentary about five kids who go to school together starting with when they were in kindergarten and then a movie every five years, documenting their lives since the last movie. Nathan, Keira, Felix, Rory and Justine had done two movies already and after the last movie, things just sort of fell apart for some kids and propelled other kids toward different things.

Justine is the most popular kid of the cast and she’s sixteen now. Things are so different from how she thought they’d be five years ago. Her and Rory are no longer friends and she lives with the guilt of that, everyday. Nate and Felix are no longer best friends and there’s more to the story than anyone knows. Keira’s Mom is long gone and Keira hasn’t heard anything from her since the last movie. With Lance and Leslie back in town and setting up for the next movie, Justine is worried about how people are going to react to the Justine they see now. She’s a far cry from the confident and happy Justine she was when she 11 and all of these worries make her not want to do the movie.

Things are different now. Too much has happened and too many people were hurt and those are things that Justine isn’t ready to deal with but because this is fiction and there needs to be drama, Justine does the movie. The five kids are thrown together and expected to just be real with each other so that the producers can make money off of their problems and their realities and over the course of the book, things happen and the friendships and relationships that were thought to be done for get dealt with in many ways.

There’s a road trip in this book which made me happy but there are also friendships that are strengthened in this book, which I loved even more. I became really close to these characters and seeing them grow up and come into their own was really great for me. I loved seeing them get the answers that they needed, the acceptance that they wanted and I really, really loved the relationship that blossomed.

I don’t think I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first book but it was still a great book. It was an enjoyable read with likable characters and an interesting premise. I thought Castle did a great job of telling everyone’s story (including Justine’s) and it was just a really great, summer read.

Grade: 4.25 out of 5

This book is available from Harper Teen.  You can purchase it here or here in e-format.  This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.