Short synopsis: The Daydreams was a popular teen show, until scandal ripped them apart. Now, 13 years later they are reuniting.

My thoughts: Give me all the celebrity gossip and behind the scenes look at teen/child stars!

This was such a fun read! I loved the duel timelines, multiple perspectives and of course the drama! Each character was so special in their own way, and I really enjoyed reading about their interactions both during their run in stardom, and now after their fall from fame.

I flew through this one, the story was told so well with glimpses of tabloid magazines, inner character soliloquies, twitter messages, and entries from THE journal. I did a mix of audio and physical on this and the audio was just so great! Full cast of narrators and they did such a great job together!

Read if you love:
- Teen drama
- Where are they now
- Celebrity gossip
- Behind the scenes
- Drama
- Friendships

Thank you to @netgalley @berkleypub and @berkleyromance for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @prhaudio for a free download of the audiobook.

The Daydreams was a popular teen drama that suddenly ended following the filming of a live show. Wanting to move on with their lives and seek forgiveness, the cast agrees to reunite for a live reunion. Secrets are revealed, answers were finally received and things the cast didn’t even know they wanted were achieved.

This was a fun book to read. I was fully invested from the start. If you loved Daisy Jones and the Six, then I recommend reaching for The Daydreams!

4 stars

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✨ Book Review ✨

A big thank you to @berkleypub @netgalley for this #gifted ARC #TheDaydreams !! Available 5/2!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 The Daydreams by Laura Hankin

Stars of a popular teen show from the early 2000’s come back together for a reunion special thirteen years after a scandalous flameout.

What it has to offer:

🎭 Drama
👯‍♀️ Friendship
💋 Romance
❤️‍🩹 Forgiveness

Quick thoughts:

✨ Filled with drama.
✨ Lots of twists and turns.
✨ Second chance romance.
✨ Friendship and forgiveness.

Overall thoughts:

📝 I loved the writing style. I was completely captivated. It held my attention from the start and it was easy to fall into a reading rhythm.

🎭 There’s so much drama to be had here. Drama surrounding the group breaking up, their last showcase, the lives they’ve lived since and of course their reunion. I was gobbling it up. It really made me think of Britney Spears and aspects of her career.

👯‍♀️ Friendship plays a huge role in this story. Interestingly it wasn’t just about the positive side of friendship but the negative side as well. It felt very realistic rather than just aspirational.

💋 An undercurrent of romance runs throughout the entire story. I felt like I could feel what they were feeling. The pining, tension and hope for the future were all executed so well. There were so many twists and turns I was scared there wouldn’t be a satisfying resolution but there absolutely was!

❤️‍🩹 Forgiveness is a big theme in this story. There was a lot of second chances at play. Not only a second chance with a career but with close relationships as well.

💜 My favorite part was their realization of the toxicity of their workplace. As kids they didn’t see it for what it was or how it harmed them but as adults they could pinpoint it.

☮️ It also reminded me a little of Daisy Jones & the Six but with millennials.

If you like dramas filled with twists then read this book!

You know those books that you can tell actually where it’s going pretty early on? This is not one of those books. I love the parallels to real life celebrities who had their own struggles during this time - Hankin does a fabulous job showing how differently young women are treated in Hollywood and by the public. The characters are all very relatable and likeable even though they all have flaws. I've seen comparisons to Daisy Jones and I think that is fair - but I liked this one more!

I loved this one so much! My kids grew up on the iCarly, Hannah Montana, Drake and Josh era of television and I feel like this one took you behind the scenese!

The Daydreams was a hugely popular teen drama until a life show finale ended the series for good.

Fast forward to when the cast, now adults and many no longer in show business, reunited to give the fans what they wanted for a finale.

Told in dual timelines, which I feel was perfection - the back then and the now. We also have little side bar talks from each character similar to reality TV.

This one had it all - love, loss, deep friendships, broken friendships, lies, betrayal - just to name a few.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley books for an ARC and for allowing me to be a part of this Berkley Buddy Read!

I loved this one!

It was perfectly nostalgic and familiar, but didn't feel like it ripped off any specific pop culture moment. It kept me incredibly engaged and I couldn't get enough. The characters and the timelines perfectly balanced and complimented each other.

I wish it didn't end!

Thank you for the early copy, Berkley!

Whew! This was a drama filled, snarky and fun ride. I absolutely loved the way the story alternated between the past and present, all around the premise of former teen stars and some Britney and Justin-esque scandals. I understand the comparisons to Daisy Jones and The Six, in that The Daydreams were actors who also played bandmates, so the story does revolve around a band and the music industries in some ways, but I wouldn't go into it expecting the same mood and tone as Daisy. However, if you're looking for a salacious, thrilling story that examines obsessive fandom and Hollywood's treatment of young (and older) women, add this to your list!

this was SO GOOD!

if you loved daisy jones & the six, then you will love this.
i’ve wanted a good celebrity fiction book for a while, and this was it.
the characters were all so funny, and fleshed out. i loved the plot lines, and the development of them.

"This is the terrifying thing about being famous, isn’t it? You occupy people’s minds even when you don’t want to. You never really know all the people who are thinking about you at any given moment, wanting to possess you or ruin you."

Laura Hankin’s The Daydreams is being published at a time when many people are reconsidering the often-cruel treatment of many young female stars in the late 1990s and early 2000s: Jessica Simpson, Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, etc. The novel has a dual timeline, taking place in 2004, when the stars of the wildly popular TV series “The Daydreams” are preparing for their live season finale, and in 2018, when their lives have turned out very different than they might have expected a decade and a half ago.

Kat, the show’s Mean Girl and the book’s narrator, gave up show biz and became a corporate lawyer; Liana, the supportive sidekick, married a baseball star and is now striving to make it as an influencer. Summer, the female lead, known for playing a sweet virgin on the show, has been in and out of rehab, a walking punch line in late night talk show monologues. And Noah, Summer’s love interest, is about to be cast as a superhero in a new blockbuster movie.

What went wrong at the 2004 live show, and why are these four getting back together for a second shot at stardom? The answers roll out slowly, with plenty of unexpected twists. Each member of the quartet has his or her own reasons for agreeing to the reunion; in Kat’s case, it’s that she fears she was partly to blame for what has become of Summer.

The Daydreams is both a cautionary tale and a slightly soapy celebrity saga; no matter how famous the actors get, Hankin warns, most of the real power still rests with the people offscreen: the directors, studio heads, managers, and others who will use and abuse their stars before simply discarding them and moving on to the next fresh face.

Thanks so much to Berkley and Let's Talk Books Promo for the copy of this book.

I am LOVING the reunion-show trope and 90s references in a few books I've read lately, and The Daydreams has both of these.

The messy, off-the-wall cast from The Daydreams comes back together for a live reunion show years after their first live show totally imploded. I absolutely loved watching this drama play out in the past and present timelines, and then having each character give a soliloquy thoughout the story to explain their POV. This story is so engrossing I finished it in a day - all the scandal and secrets make it move so fast I didn't want to stop! I love where the characters ended up and thought that while this was a messy drama, it was also a great narrative on the expectations of teen stars and women in the TV/film industry.

Read if you:
- watched the Disney Channel
- ever imagined yourself in the TRL audience
- had a teen magazine with celebrity stickers in it
- love lots of drama

Brimming with betrayal, envy, and young love, THE DAYDREAMS follows a cast of young actors as they meet for a band reunion show years later. If you grew up in the early 90s this story will feel reminiscent of the blossoming careers of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

What might be misconstrued as a lighter read takes on some heavier topics such as consent, body image, and exploitation of young actors at the hands of big media executives. The story offers an interesting social commentary on the consequences of living life in the limelight during formative years and the impact being viewed as a public commodity can have on someone.

I appreciated the dual timelines to compare the characters as young adults to years later when they are older and wiser. At times the book leaned a bit YA due to the age of the characters but the content grounded the story a bit for me. This story went down easy and would make for fantastic poolside reading.

READ IF YOU:
Can’t resist a reunion show
Feel nostalgic for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse glory days
Want Daisy Jones with a YA feel

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: May 2, 2023

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was very middle of the road for me and I’m not exactly sure why because the setup had so much potential for me but there was something missing in the execution. I think I wanted more depth in the characters, things jump back and forth between 2004 and 2018 so I had assumed the characters would show some growth but sadly they didn’t for me. Kat narrates the majority of this with snippets from the other cast members and I didn’t connect with her at all either. The conflict was also lacking in my opinion, I expected something more juicy so overall this one was just ok for me.

The Daydreams is about a group of kids from a popular teen show who comeback together as adults for a reunion show. After thirteen years, the stars agree to give their fans the closure they need after the show went down in flames during season two. The story is told from alternating POV’s of the cast, and the past/present. The story also incorporates mixed media with news clips, social media and entertainment shows following the cast.

The first half the story is quite boring as nothing literally happens. It’s about the halfway mark BIG secrets get revealed leading to better story, and the second-chance at love unfolds. Secrets revealed, young love reignited, and wounds healed. For fans of Daisy Jones and Six, this book feeds the fix you need in this genre.

Thank you Berkley Publishing for the complimentary copy.

This book was so much fun!!

Short Synopsis:
The year is 2004. Teen dramas are all the rage. Add in singing and dancing and you have the number one hit-show The Daydreams. That is until a disastrous live finale. It’s 14 years later, and one of the stars mentions in an interview he’d love to have a reunion. Everything spirals, and the reunion is going to now happen.

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed this one so much. It was so much drama, and so much tension and so many secrets that I just couldn’t wait to listen to more. It was such a fun peek into life of a reunion show. Reunion show books have become popular lately, and it’s one of the best ones I’ve read.

Read if You Like:
📸 Celebrity Drama
📸 Reunion Shows
📸 Messy, messy relationships
📸 DRAMA
📸 High School Musical

In the early 2000s, the cast of The Daydreams were the teenage stars of a hit TV show and were living their best lives. That is, until the live season finale where everything imploded. Years later, they’ve all gone down different paths - Noah is still living the Hollywood Dream, Kat is a successful lawyer in DC, Liana is the wife of a famous athlete, and Summer’s reputation has never recovered from the aftermath of that live finale. With fans asking for a reunion special, they each have their own personal reasons to return, but what new secrets might come out in the process?
This book was so much fun and full of early 2000s nostalgia! While most of the story is told from Kat’s point of view, there were pieces of Summer’s diary from the early 2000s, as well as blog posts, and small sections from the POV other characters sprinkled in throughout the chapters. This book was full of drama and secrets from the beginning and takes a few surprising turns along the way. It was interesting to see how each character dealt with their history as a child star, their success, and their fall from grace in a different way.
Thanks to Berkley Publishing for the advance copy and to @berittalksbooks and @dg_reads for the buddy read!

This is a really interesting look inside a hit television show and the relationship dynamics and personal drama that can occur off set. While there is a good amount of plot, this one felt much more character driven. I really liked the way the author developed each of the characters, particularly Kat and Summer, and the very realistic and nuanced elements of their complicated relationship.

The Daydreams is a fictional tale of an early 200s group of teenagers who were in a musical TV show (think Disney or Glee) that rose to crazy heights of popularity before crashing spectacularly. Thirteen years later, the actors reunite and face the music (in more ways than one). It explores the exploitation of teenage stars and the result of having fame at such a young and impressionable age. The story alternates between time periods and is primarily told from the perspective of "Kat" now Katherine who was the "bad girl" on the show and is a promising big shot attorney. We also get bits of perspective from the three other bandmates: Liana, the "best friend" now an influencer and the "golden" couple - Noah, now a bona fide movie star, and Summer (the sweet good-girl star now "trainwreck."

If you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, Mickey Mouse Club, Disney channel shows/movies, Nickelodeon shows/movies, Glee, 90s/early 00s anything (music, tv, movies, pop culture), are a millenial, etc., then you'll love this book like I did.

Publishes: May 2, 2023

Thank you Berkley Publishing and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy.

The Daydreams by Laura Hankin is a standalone novel, with POV’s from 2004 and 2018. In 2004, four unknown teenagers were chosen to star in a musical drama, Daydreams, where they will be singing, dancing and acting, with terrific ratings in the first season. Summer is the beautiful girl next door, Noah is the handsome leading man, Kat plays the mean girl, and Liana istheir best friend, who also has an amazing voice. During the season two finale, all hell broke loose, and the show was cancelled. All four of them went their own ways, unable to handle some betrayal, competition, stress, paparazzi and fans. 13 years later, they all agree to return in a new reunion that has fans excited.

As the four of them reunite, they learn how so much has changed for all of them. Noah became a famous movie star, as he was the only one truly unscathed from the show. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC, hoping to become a partner. Liana is a trophy wife influencer, married to a famous sports athlete. Summer, who in 2004, was the rising star, but her life now was a meltdown, with her going to rehab.

What follows has the four of them rekindling their friendship, working together to sing and dance even better now, as they fall into the magic of the original show; but secrets are revealed, including betrayal, revenge, and love. I truly liked all four of them, as they were flawed and somewhat broken in many ways, especially owning up to mistakes they made years ago. Noah and Summer were still very much attracted to each other. Will there be a second chance to love?

The Daydreams was a thought-provoking emotional and fun story, with wonderful characters. I loved the epilogue, which was very good. The Daydreams was an entertaining story that was so very well written by Laura Hankin.

It's no secret that the 2000s wasn't a great time to be a young celebrity pursued by the paparazzi. We need only look at the past stories of Britney, Lindsay, or Paris to know that being followed for headlines made for a challenging existence.

The premise for this one immediately intrigued me. In this fictitious world, The Daydreams was a popular teen show in the early 2000s, but during the live season two finale, it all fell apart. Thirteen years later, the stars are reuniting for a special that could be their shot at redemption or their ultimate downfall.

Hankin opens her story with this line, "We All had our roles to play, and I was The Bitch. Or, to rephrase in the family-friendly language preferred by the corporation that aired our TV show: The Mean Girl."

Yes, Kat hasn't had it easy being the show's teen villain, especially playing this role opposite a cast that all had golden storylines with redemptive threads. However, despite her villainous role, Kat has moved on to a more anonymous life with a successful career as a lawyer in Washington, DC. At the same time, her former castmates have pursued their own paths, ranging from blockbuster films to influencer lifestyles to cautionary tales exposed by the paparazzi.

Living in the time of reboots isn’t easy, and each carries secrets that could change how they interpret those past years and their future. We get snapshots of what they endured as teen celebrities through viewpoints from memories, slanted media articles with fabricated headline news, forums, and journal entries.

Hankin's novel delivers another inventive and captivating read with intriguing backstories, moral explorations of Hollywood's role in a teen celebrity's life, and page-turning plot twists from shifting viewpoints. As the middle fell into a lull, I was surprised to be pulled in again by the shifting viewpoints that turned the story on its head.

Fans of Daisy Jones & the Six or The Reunion are sure to be hooked by this unique take on the challenges of fame, the power of secrets, and the complexities of reunion.

Pair this novel with a celebrity memoir from Jessica Simpson or Paris Hilton for the perfect book pairing.

4.5 rounded up!! 🤩

I went in with no expectations because this is my first Hankin novel + I’ve read SO many books lately about a Hollywood/celebrity/TV/music reunion, ya know?!

BUT!! I was honestly blown away 🤩

✨4 main characters who all had a “role” to play on screen + off
✨a Disney-machine like company
✨addiction, body image issues, slut shaming
✨jealousy both professionally and personally but misplaced envy
✨the sexualizing of young teens + the insane pressure put on them to be “pure”

It was a full cast audiobook + I highly recommend you preorder your copy now!