I knew going into this one there would be a nod to Taylor Swift and a Daisy Jones feel. And that was definitely true which I absolutely appreciated. At the beginning these little nuances were very fun and clever. However I ended up getting really invested in these unique characters. Dylan Read is a complex character and so is her relationship with her missing best friend. I loved the pacing of unfolding events. I was never bored but also never overwhelmed with information or confused. I think I'll be continuing to analyze Dylan Read and other characters for quite some time after finishing this one. A must read for Taylor Swift and TJR fans! (Swifties, let's not dive in too deep here. This is Dylan Read, and if this wasn’t fiction we’d be obsessed with her too.) And to be honest…. I could use a Once More From the Top original soundtrack.

Music insider details and a childhood mystery are the basis of this compelling read. Filled with observations about the desire for a public career and fame but also the desire for a private life will make you think about our current young female musicians. Long live rock and roll!

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Originally was drawn to this one as a Daisy Jones fan, and did enjoy that some parts of the story were definitely influenced by Taylor Swift. The multi-layered flashbacks and extremely long chapters took some getting used to, though, and the second half and felt anticlimactic. In a positive note, props to the writer the lyrical work in this one; another book like Daisy where I wish the music was real 😂 ❤️

If you are curious about the music industry and how singer, songwriters pull together their songs and albums, then this book is for you.

This book goes back and forth between present day and flashbacks of how each album was created and the stories that happened during that time.

There is a little mystery that is resolved at the end of the book, but this book is more a snapshot of a celebrity musician’s life.

Also if you like a book that mashes up multiple book genres, this book is one for you.

Thanks to @netgalley and @marinerbooks providing the ARC. I read this book as part of @thoughtsfromapage Early Reads program.

#OnceMoreFromTheTop #EmilyLayden

Once More From the Top by Emily Layden was a solid 3.75 novel.

This novel gave me The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale vibes. The mashup between a music industry/ musician as the main premise with thriller-y elements was complementary. I will be seeking out more of these types of novels. One that I read and enjoyed was Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson with Dolly Parton.

Nashville, live music and country music were sprinkled through the novel. Dylan Read is hella famous, selling millions of albums, but her past catches up with her after her best friend’s body is found in a lake. She has to navigate the tragedy with a celebrity lens and through a PR firm despite this being her best friend. Shifting through the past and present, it unravels at a quick pace. Some themes were imposter syndrome in a career, grief and loss, teenage angst, and navigating through a music career in a male dominated industry.

TW/CW: some descriptive content regarding young females (in sexualized way by adult males). I personally had to skip those sections.

Thank you to Cindy Burnett with the Thoughts From a Page podcast / Page Turners Patreon group for arranging ARC copies. Thank you to the publisher Mariner Books; the author; and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a review.

Giving 3 stars because I don't think I was the best audience for this book. It's much more focused on the friendship and the music field dynamics for Dylan than it is on the actual disappearance.

This will be a great read for someone interested in the music industry!

Dylan Read is a teen country singer turned pop star (sound familiar?) When her high school best friend who had been missing for fifteen years' body turns up, Dylan must go home for her funeral and face the past she's worked hard to bury.

This book is one part Taylor Swift fan fic, one part Listen for the Lie (a solid recent thriller), and all good. I was unsure of how the author was going to pull this off or if it would seem ridiculous, but it actually worked well, and I really enjoyed the characters and the plotline of this book. I can't wait to see what else this author does.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for a fair review.
I'll start with YAY! I really enjoyed this read. It is marketed to us fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid which is what drew me in. It is definitely that. There is a similar writing style in this book. But there is a little more mystery to this one. The story unfolds in a dual timeline way as we see Kelsey and Dylan's friendship develop and the level of guilt that haunts Dylan and her family for years.
I would recommend this book for sure and would probably make a good audio book as well.
4*

Super fun story that traces the propulsive start of the legendary pop Dylan Read.

Much like Daisy Jones & the Six, Layden gives us the good, the bad and the ugly and traces Dylan's start as a teen and her rocket to stardom. Dylan harbors a secret however, that is dark and would threaten all that she has accomplished. For years she has done everything she can to keep the secret but it's eating her up inside. When Dylan's best friend from childhood is found at the bottom of the lake in their town, she is forced to face everything she has been running from.

Just loved it, savored it, enjoyed it immensely. If you love rock and roll, contemporary culture, pop stars, fame and mysteries, this is a story for you!

#mariner #oncemorefromthetop #emilylayden

This was an interesting story with a past/present timeline. Dylan Read is a mega-star (think Taylor Swift) in the music industry, but very little is know about her past. Early in the story, the body of her childhood best friend is found, and we take a journey back in time to how the two met, their friendship, and finally, how her friend ended up at the bottom of a lake. There is an air of intrigue surrounding the whole story, and it unwinds in a slow, clever way that tells an interesting tale of life before and after fame, and what it is like to be famous, especially in the music industry. I recommend this for fans of mysteries, music stories, and coming of age tales.

This is the perfect book for swifties who love a bit of a mystery. With a Taylor Swift-esque protagonist who details her journey through the music industry alongside exploring the secret from her childhood she carries through her fame, this is such an interestingly written tale about friendship, guilt and the way someone’s past impacts the art they create.

I really enjoyed the way this was written, the exploration of Dylan’s past coinciding with her developing career and music styles. The details on how a story is crafted and the poetry behind it was so interesting and gorgeous. At times, I couldn’t tell if I liked Dylan or not but ultimately that’s what made me enjoy the book. I found her such a beautifully complex character that was hard to stomach at times but I also felt like one of her fans - invested in seeing how she handled the situations she was in.

Once upon a time we were each little girls with dreams - to sign, to dance, to write. Even before we knew those dreams were possible we were surrounded by school, siblings, girl-problems. Yet we dreamed! For Dylan and Kelsey they shared a childhood, each with different perspectives. Told in dual timeline format with threads of youth being pulled into current day timeline. As Dylan's dreams come to reality, Kelsey's memory continues to haunt her - her success, her ambition. A page turner from the start - with several twists and turns until you reach a satisfying ending!

What if Taylor Swift had a best friend in high school that mysteriously went missing and no one knew about it?

Dylan goes back to her hometown when the body of her best friend/collaborator is finally discovered after having been missing for 15 years. People are naturally curious about it given the fact that Dylan had never mentioned her during her career. Hopping back and forth between timelines, we learn about the rise of her fame and how Dylan copes with everything in the present time.

The only thing I didn’t care for too much in the book is how the author jumped around a bit too much with the dual timelines. It got to be a bit confusing at times.

Thanks as always to NetGalley for the ARC.

Loved this book! It is one of my favorites so far of the year. Reminded me of a mix of "Daisy Jones & The Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid and "Stargazer" by Laurie Petrou. I enjoyed Layden's first novel, "All Girls," but "Once More From the Top" exceeded my expectations. Layden was able to weave in three timelines in a way that was easy to follow and kept me wanting to keep reading to find out what would have happened. I gave this book 5 stars because I enjoyed it so much, but I would have liked to see Dylan have more connection with the characters in the timeline that told the story of Dylan's career. I felt the title could have been something a bit more representative of some of the themes in the book such a friendship, family and betrayal in the well-developed setting of their town in Upstate New York.

This is an intriguing story about friendship, fame, and the cost of both. The writing is lush and beautifully descriptive, however, I didn’t feel connected to any of the main characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars: Highly readable novel that definitely gave me “Taylor Swift’ feels as it is the journey, from childhood to super stardom, of a singer who also moves through the varied music genres of country/pop/rock.

At the same time, however, there is a mystery of her best friend from high school - a body is found in today’s timeline, and the book spends the rest of the plot line traveling back and forth to expose where Dylan came from and how she arrived at her Icon status.

At times, the constant time-switching was hard to follow, but the story was compelling, believable, and kept me turning pages. I was entertained:)

Thank you to Thoughts From a Page podcast and Mariner Books for the advanced copy of Once More from the Top! When given a chance to read an advanced copy of Emily Layden’s new novel I took it based on the description. I didn’t realize she was the author of another favorite, All Girls, which I loved a few years ago.

Once From the Top is a story that draws you in through country star Dylan Read’s memories of her best friend in high school, Kelsey, Kelsey’s tragic accident and Dylan’s rise to fame along with the present day news of Kelsey’s accident and its impact on Dylan’s life and relationship. Layden creates a believable story of fame that brings to mind Daisy Jones and the Six as well as Colton Gentry’s Third Act while also building suspense and pulling the reader into a 15 year old mystery. I strongly recommend this book and look forward to more from Layden in the future!

I wanted to love Once More from the Top, but ultimately it felt like two different books to me.

One is the rise of a singer (whose career mirrors a real-life pop star's) and how her career was influenced by her childhood best friend. The other is a woman revisiting her hometown in connection to the discovery of her best friend's body. Both are compelling ideas, but the way they are utilized here, neither has a real narrative. I wish it would have felt more like a true mystery or more of a singer carving her path in the music world. Instead, I was frustrated by what seemed like two half-stories.

My issues with the plot aside, the writing is beautiful. The characters and settings were very well-written, and would have been incredible if the plot served them in a stronger way. I'll definitely read the author's next book.