If you're dying to know more about Joe Patane, the perpetually smiling, woman-loving, porn-consuming MBA student from the Miami-based season of MTV's The Real World, Livin' In Joe's World is the book for you. As the front cover enthuses, it's the "unauthorized, uncut, and unreal!" first-person account of Patane's experiences as a member of The Real World cast. How was it for Patane? Not particularly pleasant, according to his book, though it's hard to muster up much sympathy for him. After all, his main complaint seems to be that he was followed around by a camera crew for five and a half months, a fact that should not have surprised him assuming he had 1) stopped to think about what he was getting himself into, and 2) ever seen an episode of the show before. While Patane himself seems less detestable than the average Real World cast member, reading Livin' In Joe's World is like reading an earnest sophomore's diary. When not waxing eloquent about his faith (he describes God as "my buddy" a couple of times), he's lamenting his failed relationship with his one-time fiancée, the vaguely frightening model Nic. Nic gets an entire lovesick chapter dedicated to her, a stretch of text which confirms that the details of romance are often best kept between the involved parties. Statements such as, "[Nic] once wrote a poem that admitted that looking at me is like seeing herself" should never be inflicted on close friends, let alone innocent readers. As for the other members of the Miami cast, the experience seems to have instilled in the author a mild hatred for nearly all of them, but Patane so rarely strays from his favorite subject (Joe Patane) that it's seldom clear why. Still, members of select demographic groups—friends of Patane, Patane's immediate family, Real World cast members past and present, and those who found that the 21 episodes in which Patane appeared did not provide enough Patane for their liking—will want to pick it up. After all, if he is to be believed, the author is recognized in public so often that he can't leave his apartment in the daytime. This and the "Joe's Virtual World" website (http://members.aol.com/aaprjp/ index.html), which provides an exclusive glimpse at the apartment of Joe Patane, could be your last chance to grab a piece of Patane before he slips into the well-deserved obscurity to which he says he wants to return.