I went into this book completely blind and I'm so glad that I did. While there seems to be a big following for this book and a lot of YouTube talks about this author I had the pleasure of discovering it all out without any bias opinions to sway me either way. This book is all about our main character, Orie. She is a little bit of a book work and likes to hide behind her sister who is much more of the social butterfly. When Orie's sister implies she never makes any decisions for herself she decides on a whim to apply to survivor not expecting anything of it. When much to everyone's surprise the casting director calls her and informs her that she's been chosen she is no idea what to do. Fast forward a few days later and she suddenly stranded on an island way out of her comfort zone. Then to make matters worse she finds out that she isn't on the show she thought, it's actually a reality dating show where contestants and tied together, literally. And this is when the book really takes place. I really liked our main character because it was nice to see her embracing her quirks / flaws as well as the fact it made for a very fascinating read. I haven't read many books like this one before. I think the best part about this one was how relatable our main character was. This was a nice and simple read however it was a complex story line which says a lot of good things about the authors talent. I loved Orie's character and how seeing how she was able to overcome her personal as well as relationship struggles was something that since the beginning I was rooting for. Even though this was quite a long book at four hundred pages I just couldn't put it down and I never wanted it to end. Really compelling read but what I liked the most about it was how easy it was to read and to fall completely into the story line. This was a beautifully light novel that was just amazing to read and I loved everything about it. after reading this book I am eagerly awaiting the chance to read more by Christina. This is the type of book that creates life long readers and a YA mixed with survivor mixed with romance is everything I dreamed about. Great read and I'm so glad I was give the chance to check it out l, because it definitely checked off all the boxes and more.

4.5 stars - Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book; what an honor to get to read something from one of my childhood favorite booktubers! Even better, this book did not disappoint! Our MC goes on Survivor (the TV show), but this season is a special spin-off with romance elements added. This book is so unique and just as fun and sweet - seriously a delight to read. It wasn't too long (if anything, I wanted MORE detail). Our MC starts out seriously irritating (to me), but Riccio masterfully has crafted this to show us incredible character growth and make the readers fall in love with her anyway. There's some love triangle aspects, some (not too in-depth) discussions about addiction, and a few squeamishly silly scenes. Definitely will be recommending this to anyone who wants a fun, unique, adventure-style romance!

This was so FUN! I’m not a survivor junkie but did watch it back when it first was on with my parents. I AM a Bachelor girlie though so I loved the meld of these two reality show genres- I would totally watch this concept. I didn’t know what to expect going into this, and was pleasantly surprised. The vibes were immaculate. It was incredibly funny, and I laughed out loud multiple times while reading. I loved that at no point did I really know where this was going, and it kept things super interesting. The format of timelines and confessionals was great. I’ll definitely be getting our librarian to order this one for school. Thank you!!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195790639-attached-at-the-hip

I thought I was going to read a love story between two people, and what I ended up reading was a love story for the main character learning to love herself, AND I AM HERE FOR IT! All of the turns this book took led in exactly the right direction. The plot of a romantic twist on Survivor was very clever. I would not hesitate to recommend this to a YA reader because it was not overly detailed on romance. Overall, an enjoyable read.

I found the cover and premise of "Attached at the Hip" to be really intriguing initially but unfortunately I really struggled with the writing style of this book.

I do think this book will find it's intended audience and resonate better with its readers, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you Christine Riccio , Net Galley and St. Martin's Press- Wednesday Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

A recently single Survivor super-fan, her high school crush, and 6 other strangers compete in a reality competition/matchmaking show for money and potentially love.

Orie recently graduated college, moved back in with her parents, and became an AcroYoga influencer with her sister. While they may have 700,000 followers, brand deals, and enough sponsorships to make a full time income, it's not what she's passionate about. In her desperation to do SOMETHING she applies and is casted for a Survivor spin-off, Attached at the Hip. When Orie lands in Fiji she learns that her first partner is none other than her high school crush. Orie and her cast mates go head to head in competitions of physical fitness, mental toughness, and emotional vulnerability as they try to win the cash prize and maybe each other's hearts.

I am not specifically a Survivor fan, but I do enjoy some other reality competition shows and understand the premise of Survivor. If you are not either a fan or have some kind of prior knowledge of the franchise you won't really understand this book. That being said the Survivor elements and challenges are really thought out and extensive. Personally, I could have done with less game show content and more interpersonal relationship building. Orie is a bit of a mess, like most 23-year-olds. Sometimes this comes off as incredibly sympathetic but a lot of the time is comes off as cringy and awkward. Ultimately I enjoyed the story as I read it but it's not a story I will really ever think about again.

I will send my review to Goodreads.
I will do an instagram story feature on publication day.

This book quickly became a favorite read of 2024! The theme of reality TV survivor merged with a dating show made this so much fun to read.
Potential spoilers...
The main character grew on me, with her anxiety and speaking troubles in personal relationships. She is a big influencer and has no problems behind the scenes or posting content for her account, but give her 8ft of rope attaching her to her date for 3 days and she doesn't know what to do. This book made me laugh, and was exactly what I needed.
I will definitely recommend this to my friends and followers!

The most adorable feel-good rom-com book I’ve read in awhile.
This book focuses on Orie. She is a young acroyoga influencer who prides herself on going with the flow. However, after a torrential argument with her sister (her acroyoga partner), realizing her relationship with her boyfriend is stagnant, and having some family secrets come to light… Orie decides to do things for herself. She applies and is accepted to a Survivor spin-off gameshow, Attached at the Hip. This is a romantic version of Survivor. Honestly, I’d watch it. She makes connections, drama ensues (as is customary on reality TV), and Orie’s character really develops throughout the book.
The good: The book is very poppy and fast paced. It was so easy to read. It’s upbeat and kept me wanting to read more. I loved Orie’s character and really felt like I could connect to many of the characters. I am a bit older, but when they started singing My Chemical Romance, it really sang to my soul. I thought the references were extremely cute. Although, that does also mean the book may not age well. The witty banter between constestants made the chemistry feel palpable as a reader.
The bad: It’s a little mind numbing at times. It feels almost too reality show trope-filled to work in moments. But honestly, going into it knowing it was going to be a fluffy book, it met all expectations.
I would 100% recommend this to anyone who needs to just feel good when reading. The drama in this isn’t too painful, and it’s just the cutest story. You really want the happily ever after. Is it the best written or more interesting book I’ve ever read? No. Is it an adorable world with a realistic (ish) romance and drama? Yes.

✩ rating: 2/5 ✩

‎˚₊‧⁺˖ plot: this was fun! our main character, orie, applies to be on her favorite show, survivor. only, when she gets there, she finds out she actually applied for a survivor spin-off show called attached at the hip, where the contestants are literally attached via tether. her first match? her high school crush she hasn’t seen in five years.

𐙚 the writing:
˚₊‧꒰ა before i start with the critiques, i want to say that if the entire book was written like chapters 65 and 66, it wouldve easily been at least 4 stars for me. those chapters had me giggling and kicking my feet 🤭. but unfortunately that wasnt the case 😫
˚₊‧꒰ა the overall premise was really good. the execution…? meh. a lot of the chapters seem almost lazily written, and i got the vibe that the author just published the first thing she typed without editing it. the first 70% of the book was dragging, it was like we got extra detail when we didnt need it and minimal detail when it was especially needed.
˚₊‧꒰ა i really hope the chapter names are removed, i thought it was just unnecessary to give a name to 70+ chapters. maybe a cute little design could be put next to the numbers instead ? yk?
˚₊‧꒰ა also, i think the author learned people like short chapters and ran with it, some of the chapters weren’t even different scenes or anything, they were literally one line of dialogue at the end and the next line at the beginning of the next chapter. its like she picked a random paragraph in the middle of a chapter, hit enter a bunch of times, then made that part the next chapter. it was unnecessary tbh.

✮⋆˙ the game: i think this would actually make a great reality game show in real life. i only had one problem with it. why, for a game based on the fact that they are all attached, are they untethered for all of the challenges?!? at least one team challenge couldve been so interesting, but there was NONE😭

‧₊˚🖇️✩.⊹♡ orie: i didnt *hate* her, but man was she annoying. some of her lines were really good and i resonated with a few of them, but the rest? i had to PUSH through them. i fought my way through this book and it’s her fault! orie is *quirky.* she talks in all caps randomly and she embarrasses herself on national tv. you’d think, knowing you’re on national television, you’d watch what you say and do more, but orie cannot relate. i have no idea how she managed to pull one man let alone two!

ִ ࣪𖤐 remy: i actually liked remy when he was introduced. i trusted him wayy more than osprey. i liked how he inspired orie to pursue a career in film. he reminded me of a guy on one season of married at first sight who clearly only went on the show for his own fame.

𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚ ༘ ˚♡ osprey: i actually didnt trust him at the beginning, i thought he would for sure turn on orie. but he absolutely grew on me, i ended up loving him so much<33

𓈒⟡₊⋆∘ thank you to netgalley for providing me this book in exchange for a review!! this is my first arc<33

Wowwowowowowowow, I loved this from start to finish! The competition, the drama, the intrigue, this has it all! I loved how you get brought on a journey thinking that Orie will have her happy ending only to discover her Prince Charming is nothing but a putz? Sign me up! Loved the competitiveness and real life scenarios that Christine Riccio draws and that Orie did indeed find her way in life AND her Prince Charming!

A very fun story with an engaging New Adult voice; overall, a charming take on a familiar premise: aka a romance set on a reality TV show.

This was a cute book and had a lot of overlap with the show Survivor. If you liked that show and rom-coms you will enjoy this book. This was my first book by this author but I would absolutely read another.

I absolutely loved Attached at the Hip! Attach the Hip is about a 23 year old named Orie, who is freshly at college and is trying to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life, so she auditions for survivor but instead of being put on Survivor she gets put on a survivor spit off show called Attached at the Hip.Which is Survivor with a Bachelor in Paradise twist where she is literally attached to the hip with another contestant. 6 out of 5 stars, definitely would and have been recommending to all my friends.The writing was smart and funny, I could not put the book down. And it fits perfectly into the CCU ( Christine cinematic universe) It was fun revisiting old characters from her other books and falling in love with new characters. It's been an amazing process watching Christine writing grow with each book she writes. I can't wait for the next one she writes and this one isn't even out yet!

Not a perfect book by any means, but I had a great time with this one! I’ve been watching Christine’s youtube channel since I was twelve or thirteen, and I’ve obsessively watched her writing vlogs ever since she started her first book, so it’s always fun to read her new work and see the outcome of things she was talking about in her videos a year ago. I’m not a Survivor watcher, but I found the premise of this book surprisingly compelling - it was paced pretty well and the characters were fun (I think it was a good decision to focus on only a few of the contestants rather than trying to give them all major roles to play/relationships with Orie). I was genuinely surprised by aspects of the plot, and I was rooting HARD for the main ship.

In terms of my own personal taste, I don’t know if I would rank this one above Better Together (I need to do a reread), but I think out of Christine’s books, Attached at the Hip definitely has the most potential for widespread popularity. It has less of a YA feel than her previous novels, isn’t overly saturated with pop culture references, and just feels more grounded overall. It’s not as emotionally heavy as Better Together, which I think works in its favor in terms of adding to the realism. When your characters are in a naturally heightened physical situation (marooned on an island, tethered together as part of a weird game show), it would be easy to go really overboard with dramatics, but she wisely shies away from that, which ends up adding a lot to the story.

While there were aspects of the plot outside the island that didn’t quite work for me (some of the drama in Orie’s family felt half baked), I thought everything on the island worked pretty well, which is more important anyway. If I had one recommendation for Christine, I would say she needs to cut back on the character cameos. Again, but Better is really not good enough of a novel to justify shoehorning Shane into every book… but that’s just personal preference, I guess. Overall, I had a really fun time reading this one and I can’t wait to see what Christine has in store next.

I absolutely fell in love with this book! I read it in one day!
The challenges, the surviver atmosphere, the romantic interests...so much fun!
I loved Orie! She's perfectly imperect and so relatable! She was quirky and fun and real!
And the twists with some of the characters really kept me entwined in the story! I had to see who everyone would end up being friends, enemies or lovers with...and who was real and fake! What a fun ride!
I loved Kennedi and Osprey and Lark!
Highly recommend for a fun story of character growth, challenging reality show, friendship building and, of course, some love stories, too!

So let me just say, I’m a HUGE lover of reality tv, reality game shows and romantic comedies, this was all of those things in one! It was a fun light read and would be great book to take with you on vacation! I loved the banter and big personalities in the characters! The cover is what drew me in,

I received this ARC via NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday books in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you net galley and the publisher for the ARC!

I tried my best to get into this book but with the clunky writing and unlikable main character narrator I DNFed this book. The chapter names took me a long time to catch on to which made the book even harder to follow. Not going to lie I don’t typically pay attention to chapter names - it’s clever for sure but left me scratching my head.

If you like super extra and high maintenance female leads who see a spider and act like the world is ending this book is probably for you!

This book was SO GOOD! I am primarily a fantasy reader with some romance sprinkled in and this book took me by surprise! The premise is as if survivor was mixed with a rom-com. I absolutely loved the concept and felt like the author did such a great job with executing the twists and turns, relationship dynamics and all of the quirky details. I really loved that this book had so much more than just a traditional rom-com which personally can feel a little redundant. I could feel the joy and fun that the author had with this book and I really loved the outcome of the story and where the characters ended up! I finished it in 3 days and stayed up way too late reading because I couldn’t put the book down! I can’t wait for this to release, I will be buying a physical copy! There were some minor grammatical errors but aside from that, the book was amazing! Thank you so much for the publishers for sending me an ARC copy! ❤️📚✨

Well, this was a fun little read one part romcom, one part survivor one part find yourself. I really enjoyed this book as the main character faced herself and knew she needed to make some changes even if she went about them in some pretty unconventional ways. If you’re looking for a book that will make you laugh and help you pass a dreary day this might be the book for you. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first Christine Riccio book (I own Better Together but haven’t had the chance to read it just yet) and I thought it was great! I was honestly so conflicted about Orie at first because holy shit the girl has some of her own issues but then I realized the real reason I was so annoyed with her is because she is actually me. I have attachment issues and sometimes I just need a body double to get anything done. I felt more annoyed with myself because I felt like I was being put into writing and didn’t like it. I saw one reviewer say, “Being in the headspace of this character was one of the worst experiences I've ever had while reading a book.” and frankly THANKS THIS IS HOW I ACTUALLY LIVE. 😝

Needless to say if you like any of the below, I think you’ll enjoy this book!

✨ Survivor 🤝 The Bachelor
✨ Forced Proximity
✨ Easy Read
✨ Fluff Romance

I loved the friendships Orie made with some of the fellow castmates more than I cared for the romance. Every scene with Remy made me cringe (felt very immature and high school and yes I understand why) and yet every scene with Osprey gave me hope for a ship to set sail. I’d say in the end it wasn’t really the romance that kept me going but Orie finding her truth and deciding to go at life with everything she has. Besides the unrealistic job offers just because she won the show, I wish it would’ve ended with her actually having to work towards that job/goal instead of just wrapping it up in a pretty bow cause you won a show and now have money to move.

Either way, it was an easy read that made me excited to jump into her other book and see if it’s good (maybe even better) then this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book!