The J Girls: A Reality Show (Blue Light Books)

Jocelyn, Jennifer, Jodie, Jacqui, Joelle. Ignoring the optimistic advice of elders, these five working-class teens in the Rust Belt band together in their embrace of bad behavior and poor taste as they navigate drugs, sexual assault, unstable homes, financial strain, and closeted queerness, all with loud-mouthed and clear-eyed cynicism. Winner of the 2021 Blue Light Books Prize, Rochelle Hurt's The J Girls: A Reality Show is a tribute to the grit and glitter of millennial girlhood, a testament to its dangers and traumas, and an elegy for adolescent friendships. Hurt's creative, genre-bending mix of poetry, fiction, and screenplay brings the girls to life with poetic performances of monologues, soap opera clips, mock interviews, talk shows, commercials, and even burlesque. Vulgar, rhapsodic language serves as costume and shield, allowing the J Girls to script their own images and project glowing, outsized versions of themselves into the safe space of the TV screen. Campy, trashy, and playful, the J Girls refuse to play a rigged game, opting instead to find joy wherever they can.

• | Author: Rochelle Hurt
• | Publisher: Indiana University Press
• | Publication Date: Mar 29, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 92 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0253060605
• | ISBN-13: 9780253060600