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| Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover ©2017 | -- |
| Publisher's Hardcover ©2017 | -- |
| Paperback ©2018 | -- |
Adult Language 
In this tongue-in-cheek sendup of reality TV, 10 teens are given the chance to go into space. What they don-t know is that none of it is real: the launch, the spaceplane they are living in, and the problems they face are fabricated by the show-s sleazy production company. The cast members of
In this bitingly satirical documentary novel, producer Chazz creates the sure-fire hit reality show, Waste of Space, which will launch ten teens fitting the most extreme stereotypes into space to cohabit on a tiny station with a continuous live feed. First, Chazz auditions (sometimes kidnaps) his chosen teens, including Nico, a taciturn Ecuadorean orphan, and Titania, a runaway tomboy. Chazzs reluctant, but well-paid, science team then fakes a shuttle launch before locking the teens into a soundstage spaceship. For a while, the show is ratings gold among believers and doubters alike, but then something happens. The feed is lost. Over the next twenty-four hours, on and off the ship, it emerges that everyone is hiding something, and everyone wants somethingbut whose vision of reality will prevail? And, at what cost? This edgy, madcap romp will have wide appeal. By turns chaotic, lampoon-ish, hilarious, melodramatic, thoughtful, and suspenseful, the story unfolds through transcripts, blogs, articles, etc., linked by a renegade interns narration. Damico differentiates her large cast well as their true characters emerge, though the humor intended by their stereotyping can fall flat as the author struggles to balance satire and sympathy. She also structures her mystery well, dropping clues and building suspense, making the book difficult to put down. Although the ending does not quite fulfill its promise, Nico and Titania do emerge as real and sympathetic characters in a deliberately fake world. The story includes realistically edgy language, implied alcoholism, and overt but minimally described sexual situations.Rebecca Moore. Even with a somewhat thoughtless ending, the witty writing and plethora of pop culture references in Waste of Space make it worth the read. The authors struggle to decide between realistic and alternate-universe fiction is evident, but for an adventure that will keep teens hooked until the finale, Damicos latest novel is the clear winner. 3Q, 4P.Anna Lindberg, Teen Reviewer.
School Library Journal (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)Gr 9 Up-aste of Space is the newest reality television show produced by Chazz Young and his shady team at DV8. Put 10 teenagers in a spaceship and blast them off into space to face weekly terrors, from aliens to asteroids to raging hormones. What could go wrong? What the teens don't know is that the entire production is a fake, and what Chazz doesn't know is that the scientists he hired for the show have an agenda all their own. The program becomes a national obsession. However, the scientists pull the plug on everyone, leaving the teens, Chazz, and all of America scrambling to find out what is going on. At times, Damico's latest is a hilarious satire with over-the-top caricatures in over-the-top situations; it's also a sweet YA love story of loss and redemption. The two plotlines make the book feel contrived and too long. All the characters are stereotypical, which fits in perfectly with the reality show concept, but some are completely unbelievable. The format jumps from prose to screenplay to monologue, making the narrative sometimes hard to follow. This is a unique and often engaging tale, however. It may find an audience, but as a whole, it misses the mark. VERDICT Intriguing and at times hilarious, but ultimately muddy and too drawn-out. Purchase where funny YA is lacking.Erik Knapp, Davis Library, Plano, TX
ALA Booklist (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)Science just isn't cool enough for funding anymore. Reality TV has hit a dead zone as well, so there's a compromise to be made: a show that sends teenagers into space. It's all fake, but American viewers d the kids on board the "spaceship" n't need to know that. Network CEO Chazz joins forces with NASAW (the National Association for the Study of Astronomy and Weightlessness; NASA declined to participate) to trick the world into thinking 10 teens have been shot into space. America tunes in, ratings skyrocket, and all is going according to plan . . . until it isn't. Chazz isn't pulling the strings he thinks he is, and it won't be long before the jig, which grows steadily more ominous, is up. Told almost entirely through transcripts of phone calls, video recordings, and unaired footage, this is a bitingly satirical look at the world of reality TV in the vein of Libba Bray's Beauty Queens (2011). A sure pick for fans of sci-fi spoofs, black humor, and unusual formats.
Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)Reality-TV show Waste of Space sends ten teenagers into space (in actuality, a soundstage in Arizona). The teenagers' belief that their "spaceplane" is real falters as details fail to add up. Zanily paced action humming with punch lines captures the anything-for-hype mindset of reality TV; the friendship between Nico and Titania, two teens with tragic pasts, elevates the story to a higher plane.
Kirkus Reviews (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)Ten teenagers are launched into "space" to entertain insatiable TV audiences in Damico's satirical novel.Everything on TV has already been done. Enter Chazz Young, the CEO of DV8 Productions. Chazz cooks up the idea to send 10 teens into space and to film everything. A shaky collaboration with the scientists of the National Association for the Study of Astronomy and Weightlessness and some expensive special effects result in Waste of Space. The teens aren't actually in space, but they and viewers don't know that. The cast checks every reality TV box, from the ambiguously "exotic" party girl to the black, gay diversity pick. As America tunes in, the teenagers overcome unrealistic space obstacles. Ratings go up, but behind the scenes, cast members are beginning to doubt they're in space, Chazz is desperately trying to up the ante, and NASAW is working on a side project. Suddenly, all transmissions from the "ship" are stopped, and access to it is cut off. None of the teenagers (or Chazz) knows what's going on. All they know is that they're in trouble. Told in aired and unaired video transcripts, phone transcripts, and personal recordings, the information in this novel has been compiled by an unnamed intern-turned-whistleblower. Everything that happens is over-the-top and ludicrous but cleverly crafted, the cynicism slathered on with layers of foulmouthed geniality. Like the TV show it's about, nothing in this novel is as it seems, but the journey to discover the truth is out of this world. (Fiction. 12-18)
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Voice of Youth Advocates (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)
School Library Journal (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)
Starred Review Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
ALA Booklist (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)
Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Kirkus Reviews (Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)
DEVELOPMENT
THE YEAR IS 2016.
Things aren't looking good for the future of space exploration. Things aren't looking good for the state of reality programming, either. It is at this intersection of earnestness and stupidity that the idea for Waste of Space is born.
Naturally, it involves teenagers.
And so it comes to pass that in the midst of a rare Los Angeles thunderstorm, a dozen shadowy figures meet in the small hours of the morning at a secret and nefarious location: the Denny's off Wilshire Boulevard. They take up two tables, eight urns of coffee, and five carafes of orange juice. The astrophysicists wittily order Moons Over My Hammy. The television executives order nothing.
The following meeting ensues.
Item: Transcript of audio recording
Source: Development meeting
Date: January 4, 2016
[Note: Due to the difficulty in identifying multiple voices, most speakers have been labeled with their organizations rather than as individuals; this format will be employed in several instances throughout this report.]
DV8: You're okay with us recording this, right?
NASAW: We don't know what "this" is yet.
Waiter: [off-mike] Who ordered extra hash browns?
[thirty seconds of unintelligible chatter, rustling, sound of plates being placed on table and silverware clanging]
DV8: All right. Now that you've got your breakfasts--
NASAW: Aren't you going to eat?
DV8: We don't have time to eat.
NASAW: Not even a bagel?
DV8: Especially not a bagel, Paleo doesn't--forget it. Back to the matter at hand: our proposal. Chazz?
[sound of a throat clearing, then a chair scraping across the floor as Chazz Young, CEO of DV8, stands up to address the group]
Chazz: Ladies and gentlemen of science, I hate to break it to you, but astrophysics isn't cool anymore. Sure, people embrace technology when it allows them to post photos of epic bacon-wrapped food items, but drag them into a planetarium and you'll end up with desperate scratch marks on the walls. Funds have been cut, the man on the moon is several decades in the rearview mirror, and the youth of America continue to respond to the vast and impossibly boundless possibilities of outer space with an emphatic yawn.
NASAW: What about Cosmic Crusades? Cosmic Crusades is cool.
Chazz: Science fiction is cool. Science is not.
NASAW: But--
Chazz: Example: two different panels at Comic Con, one with the cast of a space-movie franchise and one with genuine astronauts. Which do you think will be better attended?
NASAW: [unintelligible grumbling]
Chazz: Exactly. Likewise, we admit, people have grown bored with the repetitive nature of reality television. They can only watch so many bar fighters, spurned lovers, table flippers, bug eaters, bad singers, and cat hoarders before it all seems like stuff they've already seen before. The world is clamoring for something new! Otherwise they'll have to turn off their devices and go read a book, and we simply can't have that.
NASAW: Books aren't bad!
Chazz: Books are the worst.
NASAW: [unintelligible grumbling]
Chazz: So. You need to drum up interest in the space program, and we need more eyes on more screens. Luckily, we've come up with a solution that we feel will be mutually beneficial to both of us.
NASAW: And that is?
Chazz: We want to take a bunch of teenagers and shoot them into space.
[choking noises]
Chazz: And put it on television.
NASAW: That's--er--not possible.
Chazz: Why not?
NASAW: Aside from reasons that should be apparent to anyone with a functioning brainstem, it's a logistical nightmare. They'd need to undergo months of training and health assessments. You'd need a ship big enough to accommodate a cast, crew, equipment--
Chazz: Oh, we'll be faking it. The whole thing will be shot on a soundstage. You really think The Real Housewives of Atlantis was filmed at the bottom of the ocean? Please. Those women were so full of silicone they would have floated straight to the surface.
NASAW: But we thought this would be a purely educational endeavor. Didn't you say you were from PBS?
Chazz: Yes! We lied. We're from DV8.
NASAW: DV . . . 8?
Chazz: It's a cable television network with several blocks of programming across multiple platforms, including streaming services, our own website, and every social media outlet there is. We'd like to cram all of them full of this.
[sound of coffee urns shakily hitting the rims of coffee mugs]
Chazz: Which is why we need you! Our first choice was obviously NASA, but they not-so-politely declined. So the low-rent version of NASA it is!
NASAW: I beg your pardon. We are the National Association for the Study of Astronomy and Weightlessness. We are not some piddling little administration--
Chazz: Which is exactly why we'd like you to be consultants. We'll take care of the casting, the production, everything on that end. You, meanwhile, design a convincing spaceplane--
NASAW: [overlapping] Spaceship.
Chazz: --you tell us what all the rumbles and beeps and boops are supposed to sound like, and we'll bring in the best special-effects team money can buy.
NASAW: But won't this seem like one big joke? With all due respect to your special effects, not even the major Hollywood movies can get it a hundred percent right. It's going to look silly.
Chazz: People believe what they want to believe. Remember America's Next Top Murderer? Viewers thought that victims were actually being picked off by a serial killer. The network had to start airing a disclaimer before each episode, saying, "No one's really dying, you morons."
NASAW: Are you serious?
Chazz: Well, I'm paraphrasing.
NASAW: I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. It just doesn't seem necessary. We've got a bunch of new initiatives in the works--
Chazz:Snore. Yawn. Coma. Let's be real. Space is passé, and everyone knows it. But you still need a new generation to carry on that galaxy research gobbledygook, or your life's work will be nothing more than a sham, right? [hearty laughter] So let's get them excited. Let's take a bunch of young, gullible, energetic, absurdly good-looking teenagers, stuff them into a spaceplane--
NASAW: [overlapping] Spaceship.
Chazz: --give them some bullshit training, and tell them they'll be the first ones ever to set foot on Jupiter!
NASAW: You can't set foot on Jupiter. Jupiter is a gas giant.
Chazz:You're a gas giant! [sound of high-fiving] That's what they'll say. That's what the kids will say. Comedy gold like that.
NASAW: But--
Chazz: Point is, this'll get the youth of America high on space again. Audiences will watch those beautiful idiots floating out there in zero G and want to be just like them. They'll buy spacesuits. They'll buy that astronaut ice cream that tastes and looks and feels like Styrofoam. The merchandising possibilities alone are astronomical. Pun intended! [sound of more high-fives]
NASAW: Now, you listen here. I've raised teenagers, and if there's one thing I can tell you about them, it's that they do nothing but talk. All day long. On the phone, on the computer, to themselves. How do you expect to get a group of high-schoolers in on a secret like this and not blab thirty seconds later about how lame and fake it is?
Chazz: Easy. We tell them it's real.
[pause]
NASAW: You want to trick a group of kids into thinking that they're actually being launched into space?
Chazz: Yes.
NASAW: You want them to think that they're actually being torn away from their friends and family for months, undertaking a dangerous mission from which they actually might not return?
Chazz: Yes. Drama.
NASAW: But isn't that cruel?
Chazz: "Cruel" is such a subjective word . . .
NASAW: Not in this case! The entire proposition is morally questionable! I'm sorry, but we--we can't sign on to do something like this.
Chazz: Fine. Continue your recruiting efforts in the same way you have been. How's that going for you?
[silence]
Chazz: Envision with us, for a moment: Plucky kids. Touching backstories. Plaintive piano music. They first set foot in the spaceplane. Their eyes light up. Our intrepit explorers are--
NASAW: Intrepid.
Chazz: Huh?
NASAW: The word you're attempting to use is "intrepid."
Chazz: Pretty sure it's intrepit. Anyway, the mission commences. Lifelong friendships are formed. Bitter fights erupt. Maybe a slap or two. A slap in zero gravity--that's never been done before! [sound of a pen scribbling in a notebook] Every eye in America will tune in to check on their new cosmic sweethearts. We'll edit it down to a half hour each week, plus a live segment tacked on at the end of the show so the cast can wave to their furiously jealous friends in real time. We'll air it online, too. Live stream, 24/7. Shove it into viewers' faces until they can't help but get swept up by it. And before you know it, their impressionable young minds will be putty in your hands. They'll sign up in droves to join the Cosmic Crusades!
NASAW: That is a fictional movie featuring fictional space heroes.
Chazz: All the more reason to bolster their ranks! Point is, once this show airs, you'll have an entire generation of walking, talking, floating space zombies begging to be a part of it, ready to do your bidding.
[sound of chairs scraping]
Chazz: We'll give you some privacy to discuss.
[rustling]
NASAW #1: Has it really come to this?
NASAW #2: The worst part is, they're right. We've tried so hard, reached out as much as we can, but we still haven't connected with the voice of today's youth. These . . . people, horrible as they are, do have the kids' attention.
NASAW #3: It pisses me off! Sitting here across from these plastic, vapid nincompoops, having to listen to this claptrap. We're scientists, for Galileo's sake! People should be looking to us as golden gods of knowledge, worshiping us for our big brains and thick glasses! Why can't anyone see that?
NASAW #4: I don't know. But something has to be done. Something drastic.
[commotion]
Chazz: All right, time's up. What do you say, nerds?
[long pause]
NASAW: [dejected] When do we get started?
Chazz: Casting begins next week!
Excerpted from Waste of Space by Gina Damico
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Cram ten hormonal teens into a spaceship and blast off: that’s the premise for the ill-conceived reality show Waste of Space. The kids who are cast know everything about drama—and nothing about the fact that the production is fake. Hidden in a desert warehouse, their spaceship replica is equipped with state-of-the-art special effects dreamed up by the scientists partnering with the shady cable network airing the show.
And it’s a hit! Millions of viewers are transfixed. But then, suddenly, all communication is severed. Trapped and paranoid, the kids must figure out what to do when this reality show loses its grip on reality.