Published: 3 January 2024 (print)/2 January 2024 (audio) 
Publisher: Atria Books/Simon & Schuster Australia
Pages: 400/9 hrs and 35 mins
Narrator: Matty Morris, Aileen Huynh
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Romance
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars
Murray O’Connell is standing on the greatest precipice of his career. As showrunner of the reality dating show Marry Me, Juliet, Murray is determined to make this season a success.
Nothing and nobody will stand in his way.
Except perhaps Lily Fireball, the network’s choice for this season’s villain. Lily has classic reality TV appeal: She’s feisty, dramatic, and never backs down from a fight. She also happens to be Murray’s estranged best friend and former co-showrunner.
What was once a perfectly planned season turns to chaos as the two battle for control. Working in reality television, they’re used to drama, secrets, and romance. But what happens when suddenly they’re at the center of the storyline?
I love this series. This is the third version of this story but while there is a whole other side being explored, there’s obvious overlaps and seeing that cross over with what I’ve read in books one and two are great nods to the other points of view while also being a fresh new story on its own. Lily has intrigued me from the very beginning. I have been dying through two books to know Lily’s story. Now I finally have it.
It is amazing to see how easily people can be produced. It’s come up before, not in the reality TV space, but how people can be manipulated or at least be used to gain information or make people reveal more than they normally would. We all know about the editing to get the best TV, it’s something we’ve seen it in the past two books and now we finally have the answers.
Murray has suffered a lot as a result of this and I love how his rushed, tired, and frantic existence is captured in his narration. You can see how run off his feet he is, something that we’d seen briefly in the other books but it’s fun to see the poor man suffer at the whims of these characters who aren’t doing the story they originally planned on.
It isn’t all heart-warming and sunshine, nor a revisit to scenes and plots we’ve read before. Seeing behind the scenes of reality TV has never been my cup of tea. I don’t actually like seeing how manipulative producers and editing can be. Now McAlister has given us the perspective of those behind the scenes it’s hard to see the enjoyment in these shows. Where previous books showed how the characters could defy the chosen narrative and make their own paths, it’s hard seeing how those less fortunate can’t escape being manipulated by what makes “good TV”.
Having said that, it’s still great. It’s interesting because a few chapters in you know where it’s going, you’ve also read the other books so one side you’ve seen already. Yet McAlister has still makes these characters intriguing enough, their dynamic engaging enough, that you need to see how they both react to what happens in this story.
Despite being on the dodgy side of ethics, Murray and Lily do know they aren’t the best people. Coercing people into their narratives and staging things to get the outcomes they want are things they know aren’t good, but they know they are good at them as well.
The replay of scenes we’ve read before never feel repetitive and it’s a good reminder of what’s happened and the different points of view and how those events came to be. Reading the three books gives a perfect view of every angle of the story. The final story being the behind the scenes manipulations, puppetry, and wrap up of the mysteries of the previous books is perfect.
You can purchase Not Here to Make Friends via the following
Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
