This was a great book! Those that were younger in the 2000's will connect with a lot of this book. Disney Channel shows/stars, purity culture etc. The treatment of young celebrities in that time period and the double standard with sex and purity culture are big topics in this book. I loved how it was told in past and present and the pacing in which it all unraveled.

We've been seeing quite a few so-called reboots of old tv shows, from Fuller House to Night Court - this is supposed to be just another one of those, albeit of a show that ended quite dramatically and still haunts the stars over a decade later. Each of the characters was/is a type, and of course we're in on the "no, they're not really like that" secret -- and we're also privy to What Really Happened and the secrets they all carry as a result. As beach reads go, this is pretty fun and has a satisfying ending.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

Thank you Berkley for my copy of The Daydreams! All thoughts are my own.

I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you’re looking for a book that will totally pull you in this Summer, this is the book you should read. As someone who grew up during the heydey of Disney Channel stars, this book drew me in and I couldn’t put it down. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve done a lot of thinking and reflecting on the media I consumed as a tween and teen. It’s crazy to look back on how some of these young actresses were spoken to! Remember when there was a countdown for Hayden Panettierre to turn 18? And it was just casually talked about? Literally so GROSS. And the David Letterman with Lindsay Lohan? So disgusting.

This book is juicy and fun, but it also left me wishing I could personally apologize to every young star from that time who just wanted to make their dreams come true. I’m also really grateful my parents didn’t listen when I asked to audition for the Disney channel.

Synopsis:

What I Liked:

The Nostalgia—This book perfectly captures the celebrity culture of the early 2000’s, before social media, when the paparazzi were everywhere. And the shows that we watched! I think even if you weren’t a Hannah Montana or Victorious watcher, you’ll still enjoy it because it was such a significant book in time.

The Pacing—The first 60% of this book was so well paced! I couldn’t stop reading and had that “one more chapter” feeling I crave.

The Twists and Turns—I kept being surprised, until the very end. Not an ounce of it was predictable to me.

What Didn’t Work:

The Character Choices at the End—I don’t want to judge their decisions, but without spoiling, I just think there would have been a LITTLE more care from each of them.

Character Authenticity: 4/5 Spice Rating: 0/5 Overall Rating: 4.75/5

Content Warnings:

substance abuse, body shaming, disordered eating thoughts, fatphobia, sexual assault, sexual harassment, death of a parent, grief, grooming, gross men in hollywood, toxic relationships

Entertaining! Actors from a crazy popular TV show from the early 2000s reunite after 13 years and a disaster of a season finale and let’s just say things are still really messy.

I was worried about comparisons to Daisy Jones and The Six, which, luckily, turned out to be unfounded. This was a fun, twisty romp of a novel that was compulsively readable. I would have liked the 2004 timeline to be a bit darker and grittier, especially knowing what we know now about the Disney/Nickelodeon teen dream machine.

Easily read in a day - fast, gossipy, guilty pleasure with hints to keep you obsessed.
The season two finale of The Daydreams was supposed to land them future contracts with their network. Instead, their futures crashed.
Thirteen years later, they all agree to a reunion episode. And all the dirty laundry comes out.
A well done trashy guilty pleasure themed plot.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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.

📍 Read if you like:
• Celebrity Gossip
• Teen Drama
• Dual Timelines
• Character Driven Stories

I saw this book compared to Daisy Jones & The Six, and while it wasn’t as memorable and touching as that book, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit!

In this story, we follow a group of teen actors in a widely popular show - The Daydreams. After something goes terribly wrong, they end up drifting from each other. Thirteen years later, they reunite for a special reunion.

I was equally impressed with all the characters: Kat, Summer, Liana, and Noah. I also loved the dual timelines, I was curious reading about the past as I wanted to know what broke up this friendship.

There’s also a lot of teen drama and celebrity gossip, which I devoured. I was entertained the whole time with the secrets being revealed.

The story does take a while to get into, but I really enjoyed the way it was written. There was so much drama that had me intrigued. Also, there are such rich and raw characters. I seriously think the character development was done so well.

It was so interesting reading about these characters and their relationship dynamics. I enjoyed the way the story wrapped up. This is more of a character-driven story, but it’s worth the read!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Berkley for the review copy in exchange for my honest review!

•𝗧𝗪/𝗖𝗪: Drug abuse, body shaming, drug use, sexual harassment, fatphobia, sexual content

The Daydreams is perfect for readers who were obsessed with Disney Channel and Nickelodeon growing up. Laura Hankin drops you right into the lives of teenage stars and all the drama that comes with being on a hit television show in your teens. I loved this book! The perfect summer read. I'm so glad that I picked it up.

Laura Hankin's books are hit or miss for me but sadly this was a bit of a miss. I didn't ever really care for any of the characters in this group and found most of them to be irritating or just very young with poor choices. I thought the ending was not great and really wanted to see them evolve a bit more by the end.

4.5 stars

The Daydreams is emotive and realistic character-driven reunion contemporary fiction that revolves around four friends Kat, Summer, Liana, and Noah who met on the set of the teen musical TV show The Daydream as teenagers in 2004 but live show at the end of the second season changed their lives and broke their friendship, and took away their innocence.

It was interesting to read what happened all those years ago, will they get their second chance, or will it turn out the biggest mess.

Writing is captivating, emotive, and flawless. Even though this is contemporary, there is that anxious tone and claustrophobic feel throughout the book along with some lighter moments. The story is told in alternative timeline, present 2018 and past 2004-2005. Most of the story is told from Kat’s perspective but in the second half we get other character’s POVs that added amazing twists and turns to the story. Along with the characters’ perspectives, there is mixed media format like Summer’s journal, tabloids, and interviews, social media discussion, and articles.

Characters are realistic but they all are flawed, complex, and imperfect that makes the plot super dramatic. I still can’t believe how much mess they made. It was hard to like them as they all were at fault at some point and at the same time I wanted them to have better ending and better life after this reunion.

Summer was the only one I actually liked and felt sorry for. She didn’t deserve what happened. Kat is complicated. Her guilt and regret in the present time is touching. Liana is closed book. She is black character of The Daydream and is two years older than the rest of the character. The revelation about her present life and what happened in past was shocking. Noah is selfish and made contact with big influential men and was blind to how unfair the men of the industry were to his friends.I didn’t warm to Noah until his POV and even after that I couldn’t easily trust him and Summer was right not to trust him again.

What I loved most is theme and layers in the story.The representation of teen exploitation in the TV industry, how much industry takes from the actors and gives less, paparazzi and its impact on mental health, teen emotions, stress of stardom, gender and color discrimination, friendship, and first love was amazingly written. I hated the production company in this book for taking so much from these teens making them compete against each other and how it destroyed them on their first mistake, never giving them protection or understanding of their growth or giving them another chance.

There is lots of buildup and the middle portion is a bit slow. (It’s why I didn’t give this full star.) I was dying to know the reason behind what happened and who leaked the journal and I couldn’t guess until it was revealed. I absolutely enjoyed the book. Last 30% of the book were mind-blowing, full of tension and twist and turns. I almost lost the hope for happy ending for all of them but the end is satisfying and unlifiting.

Overall, The Daydreams is emotive, realistic, dramatic and fast-paced character-driven reunion contemporary fiction with redemption arc.

A perfect read for fans of early 2000s pop culture that dives into juicy gossip, just as much as it offers a tender look at girlhood and friendship.

For fans of Daisy Jones and the Six, and Glee, this is the reunion we have all been waiting for! Excellent!

The Daydreams by Laura Hankin swives between the early 2000s and 2018. In the early 2000s, there was a hit TV show featuring the members of The Daydreams. They were flying high with success and about to make a feature-length film. Life was great until a disastrous live season finale of their show aired. This led them all to pivot their lives into new directions that they hadn't anticipated. Fast forward to 2018 when they decide they'll do a reunion show. Will this show help mend fences and repair reputations? Read and enjoy!

This was a highly entertaining book about the toxic culture and treatment of young Hollywood stars. In The Daydreams, we follow former teen star Kat (Katherine), who agrees to a reunion show with her fellow past cast-mates of a highly popular teenage television show. The last time the group was together, a dramatic and highly talked about televised incident occurred and the former teens have been trying to move on from it ever since. But they all agreed to the reunion for different reasons. Revenge, second chance love, reinvention, and distraction are some of the motives behind their decisions to return. But they never dreamed of what happens next and the secrets that were about to be exposed!

I loved the discussion about the treatment of young celebrities, especially young girls in Hollywood. The damaging culture surrounding the work environment that these young girls are involved in is horrific and sad. As we watch the mistreatment of Britney Spears and the success of the memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, we are starting to see the truth of what these young stars endured and what it cost them.

I can see this being a fun television series or movie. The 2000 nostalgia brought me back to watching my favorite teen shows, like Dawson’s Creek. I definitely recommend this page turner!

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.

I could not put this book down. I loved every minute of it. If you enjoyed Daisy Jones or if you’re a fan of 2000’s pop culture, you will love this book. It is so well done and I can’t find any fault with it. I loved living in this world and, like the fans who wanted a reunion episode, I would love a sequel (though I don’t know what it would be about). This book was truly everything that I wanted it to be and might end up as one of my top reads of the year.

Daisy Jones, but make the band a cast of teen/young adult stars on a Disney Channel show.

I enjoyed this one with a little bit of a mystery. I liked the dual timeline, and my favorite was each characters soliloquy to open up a bit more of the truth of just what happened back when the show imploded.

The comparison to Daisy Jones includes the full cast narration which I really enjoyed and I think helped bring the story to life on audio as well (thank you PRHA) and I enjoyed going back and forth between the audio and ebook for this experience.

This book was right up my alley. As I've gotten older, I still closely follow the child stars I grew up watching and I imagine a reunion for some of my old favorite shows, and I 100% know I would watch it. I really liked how the storyline flipped from the past (when The Daydreams was being filmed) and the present (when they get together for a reunion special). I liked how we mostly got Kat's point of view but we had chapters from the other characters sprinkled in as well. The story was juicy and fun with twists and reveals I didn't see coming. I blew through it in about 24 hours and overall I really loved it.

I definitely recommend this one to anyone who loves a behind the scenes look at TV shows. Thanks to Berkley for the gifted copy!

This was such a fun read! It was filled with drama, angst, betrayal, healing, self-acceptance, and so much more. The characters all have their talents and flaws, but they round each other out so well. I found myself hoping for a happy ending for them all!

Many readers have said it reminded them of Daisy Jones & the Six and it did, but I enjoyed this one more with the more YA vibes. Another hit for Laura Hankin!

I had really high hopes for this book. I love reading about fictionalized pop groups and etc but this one fell really flat for me. I didn't love the writing style and I also didn't love any of the characters. We follow Kat throughout this book but honestly I think we all can agree it should have been told from Summer's point of view.
I truly wanted to love this and sad I didn't but that happens.

This one was recommended for fans of Daisy Jones, but with it taking place in the 2000s. I’d hesitate to make that comparison, exactly, but there were similar elements - namely fame and its many pitfalls.
Kat, Liana, Noah and Summer were the “it” kids in 2004, with their hit teen drama The Daydreams compelling viewers with its drama and singing and acting. But not all of that was solely onscreen, there was plenty of drama IRL, and it all culminated in an absolute live TV disaster.
Now, years later and poised for a reunion, the group - who really haven’t spoken since - are forced to confront the multitude of secrets and issues between them.
This one was a bit slow at first, but by a quarter of the way through, I was invested. The characters all seemed equally unlikable, but I still wanted to see how everything got resolved and what further drama awaited them - and I wasn’t disappointed!