The Daydreams — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Laura Hankin
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 368

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): A deliciously entertaining novel about the stars of a popular teen show from the early 2000s—and the reunion special, thirteen years after their scandalous flameout, that will either be their last chance at redemption, or destroy them all for good.

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.

First Impressions

The cover isn’t my favorite. I don’t know if it’s the green font or the blue filter on the photograph, but it just doesn’t do it for me. I think I would walk by it. The summary on the other hand is an immediate yes please! I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. 2000-2006 was my prime teenage years, so this book is right in my wheelhouse.

What I thought

This is everything that I wanted Daisy Jones to be.

Katherine/Kat was a character in a popular teen show in the early 2000s with two other girls and one guy. The show is about them in high school forming a band and there was a lot of tie over between the show and real life. When they did a live finale, Summer, the star of the show, had a bit of a melt down and it was ended mid-broadcast. Now 13 years later, they’re getting together for a live reunion episode.

I’ll start by saying, I really enjoyed the Daisy Jones book (more than the show), but I wasn’t obsessed with it like a lot of other people were. This book though, this is probably what everyone else felt when they read Daisy. I think it helped that this was a time I could relate to. The pressure that female teenage stars were under in the early 00’s and the paparazzi plus Perez Hilton and TMZ was disgusting. This book portrays that so well. If a female star did one thing wrong, she was immediately villainized and torn to shreds.

This story is told mainly from Kat’s perspective, but does have a few chapters told from the perspective of the other characters. Though the audiobook does have multiple narrators, so I’d be curious how that changes the way the story is told. I would also love to watch this as a show or a movie.

Hankin does a fabulous job of reflecting what the spotlight was like in the early 2000s. I also liked all of the characters, even though I know you’re supposed to dislike some of them.

I loved the conflicts and the drama. I also loved the flashbacks and the perspective we have now compared to 20 years ago. Summer’s desire for redemption, Kat’s desire for forgiveness, and Noah and Liana’s desire for fame all mixes together to make a story you just can’t look away from.