Author: Laura Hankin
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Chick Lit
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 368
Date of Publication: May 2, 2023
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it all: a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded, leaving everyone scrambling to understand why.
Afterward, the four stars went down very different paths. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC. Liana is the bored wife of a famous athlete. Noah, the show’s golden boy, emerged unscathed and is poised to become a household name. And Summer, the object of Noah’s fictional (and maybe real-life) affections, is the cautionary tale.
But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come back: forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface—including the real reason behind their downfall.
Will this reunion be a chance to make things right? Or will it be the biggest mess the world has ever seen? No matter what, the ratings will be wild.
MY THOUGHTS:
When I read I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCrudy, I got a birdseye view of the life of a former child star. That was not fiction. On the other hand, this book, The Daydreams, is fiction and it is just as informative.
In the year 2004, there were four teenagers, all on the brink of adulthood, who had a successful television show. Now it is 13 years later and they have a chance for a reunion show. While as teens they may have started off as innocent, but that changed the more they were popular. In fact, despite their popularity, the show only lasted two seasons, and everybody’s lives just went in different directions.
Now that Kat, Noah, Summer, and Liana are all adults with very, very different lives, the chance for a reunion special might be the redemption they need for the travesties that occurred when they were on the show. However, secrets abound even now, and the reunion special seems like it will completely burn any connection that might’ve existed between the former child stars. The drama is off the charts, but it is a look at what no doubt really happens in the lives of many young people who live on the other side of a camera. Expectations, stardom, paparazzi, secrets and more all play into the experiences these four young people have.
I was fully drawn into their stories, whether when they were younger, or what they are going through right now and I wished above all else that they did not have to experience some of the trauma and exploitation that occurred as a result of being famous. I love how things came out in the end, and those last scenes in this book were done quite well.
Many thanks to Berkley and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
Laura Hankin is the author of Happy & You Know It and A Special Place for Women. Her musical comedy has been featured in publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she is developing projects for film and TV. She lives in Washington DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.
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