This was a captivating read that follows several generations of two families with complicated, troubled relationships histories. The chapters move back and forth in time and between characters. Two of the key characters are a 1920-30s era Hollywood director who makes a comeback in TV in the 1960s and a contemporary artist who hits the NYC scene in the full swing of cocaine and clubbing in the 1980s and becomes celebrated in her own right, shifting to ecologically-oriented performance art and collaborative work in the 2000s. The movement between time periods and characters was a bit confusing in the beginning but you find youself getting caught up in the dysfunctional family entanglements, and in the story. The story moves along at a good pace and the author does a good job of painting the characters' emotional states, warts and all. I wish the author had made at leasst one of the main characters more likeable, as it was hard to find a character to cheer for in this book (the few likeable characters were secondary, and it was a shame they were not in the pages more frenquently). Not sure the title does an apt job of conveying the content (can imagine a half dozen better titles), but this is a good read.

The Californians by Brian Castleberry pulled me into the tangled, messy lives of its characters and kept me thinking about them long after I closed the book. Klaus and Di’s journeys, separated by decades yet so deeply intertwined, felt so real and raw. I loved how their stories revealed the weight of family, ambition, and the sacrifices we make for our dreams.

This book is perfect for anyone who loves sprawling, character-driven novels with a nostalgic vibe. It’s not a quick read—it’s a story you sink into, with layers that unfold beautifully. If you’re in the mood for something that feels like peeling back the curtain on the secret lives of others, The Californians is absolutely worth the journey. ★★★★☆

I liked reading about the different generations of the same family. I had a hard time remembering who was who at first but it got better which made it more enjoyable. I feel I needed more from this than what I got though. All in all it was interesting.

The Californians starts with Tobey Harlan, who is having a rough time of it, to say the least. His girlfriend has left him, he has no real job prospects, and a wildfire is bearing down on his Northern California home. He's hoping for a second chance at life funded by the theft of a few paintings from his father's home.

Klaus Aaronsohn is a German-Jewish immigrant attempting to make his way from Queens to Hollywood during the silent film era. His granddaughter, Di Stiegel, is an artist based in NYC during the '80s, a time known for its vibrant and experimental art scene, and the creator of the paintings Tobey will steal years later.

I always feel guilty DNFing an ARC, but I had to call it quits at about 75%. I just could not connect to any of the characters. They were underdeveloped, and what was there wasn't especially likable or exciting. Even with more compelling characters, I doubt I would have stuck with this as long as I did if it hadn't been an ARC.

The novel's structure is cumbersome and gets in the way of the action. I'm a sucker for a sweeping, intergenerational drama, but I could not follow this. The story spans generations and is set in captivating times and locations. However, the narrative jumps between characters and time periods were too abrupt, making it hard to learn who they are and how they connect to each other. Castleberry also uses interstitials throughout, which I did not understand the purpose of at all.

What makes all this truly tragic is that the writing is beautiful! I wanted to spend more time with this book, but the lackluster characters and jarring structure were too much to get past. I will absolutely try another book by the author, who is clearly very talented; this just wasn't the one for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the eARC.

An ambitious feat of a novel spanning decades of the Californian era. The threads of the story never quite all came together for me, and I became turned off by the gratuitous sexual content.

I went back to this book several times, starting from the top, to give it a fair chance, but had a hard time connecting with the storyline itself, although I thought the introduction of the displaced characters (because of the wildfire in California) was relevant and I liked the relationship with Tobey and the elderly gentleman, worried for their safety, the former abandoned by his girlfriend, the latter grieving and feeling unwelcome in his daughter's home with no place to go. It was a perfect setup to a story. I'm sure it was a lovely story but as I DNF, I can't accurately say how I felt about it to the very end, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read this ARC.

This book is titled, The Californians, but only a small percentage of the book appears to have any relation to California. I do feel that it is flawed with the town of Tinsley being the name of the town that is incinerated in a wildfire. Tinsley does exist in California, it is just outside of Stockton, but that is as far as resemblance is realistic. Tinsley is an island in the San Joaquin Delta, it is owned by the St. Francis Yacht Club, you cannot get to Tinsley unless you to take a boat and you have to be a member of the Yacht Club to visit. In addition, there are no residential homes on Tinsley, it is a destination for yacht club members. It is in the delta of the Central Valley, and it is not in an area that would be at risk to wildfires. I tried to stay open minded and struggled with questioning, maybe the author was looking for a fictitious name for a town as a setting, but every other location listed in the book is an actual location. There are so many towns that could have been believable as a potential loss due to a wildfire. This makes it appear that the author may be unfamiliar with California and possibly did not fully research and this was too much of a distraction for me. The book skipped around over various time periods, locations and with many characters, making it hard to follow. It was just not for me. Thank you very much to the Mariner Books and NetGalley for an ARC digital copy of this book, I appreciate the opportunity to have read it.

You know when the start of a book stays with you because the writing is so brilliant? That's how I feel about the start of this book. We open with the character of Tobey, a young man whose life is a dead-end, and he loses everything he has left in a devastating wildfire in Northern California. Tobey ends up on a post-wildfire disaster roadtrip with a random neighbor, driving to a relative's house to steal three valuable paintings in the hopes of selling them and getting back on his feet. That storyline then disappears until we reach the conclusion of the book.

I will say, the structure of the novel felt very complex, and it was a bit tricky to follow the plot initially (for me).  Each character's story unfolds chronologically, but the author weaves everything together with clear time markers. I've never read any of Castleberry's other work, but I was super impressed by his writing - and the ability to write such an expansive novel spanning a century - so I will definitely be looking to read some of his other work. Thank you Net Galley for the early copy.

This was a very hard book to get through. It was very dry and dull, lots of slow slow parts, that it was so hard to keep me engaged. If there was a bit of a speedier pace, and some more plot, then it would have been more enjoyable for me. Overall, it was not a book for me

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

It's an expansive novel of many generatoins. A bit hard to follow but miraculous in it's entirety.

We open in 2024, and Tobey Harlan, a loser, is off to his dad;s mansion to steal paintings that will keep him afloat after selling on the black market. The story then dives back to the beginning- 100 years or more ago to Klaus, an immigrant trying to make films and then forward to the 80's where the painter is introduced (Grand Daughter of Klaus). Following the story is not always easy but the payoff is big and the entire picture is amazing!

#mariners #thecalifornians #briancastleberry

Just not my favorite. I felt I couldn’t get invested in the characters. I don’t think anything is wrong with the book, I just couldn’t get into it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Not quite for me, due to the strong sexual content and gratuitous swearing. I found it unnecessary and personally off-putting, and it was too much work following the scattered narratives.

However, books appeal to readers based on their own likes and experiences, so please read a variety of other reviews, you might find this book to be a perfect fit!

I will not be finishing this book. I was drawn to it by the title. I have a special love for California, so I was curious. However, I was turned off by it in just the first few pages. I personally do not read books with a lot of cussing or sexual content. There were too many cuss words in the first few pages of this book to continue. I also thought it was unnecessarily antagonistic towards more conservative viewpoints, and exaggerated them.

Such a great read! Highly recommend this one.

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is pitched as “for fans of Trust and North Woods” so I figured I had a 50-50 chance of loving it (I loved North Woods; I DNF Trust). The odds did not work in my favor. It had the makings of a juicy story with a braided timeline that weaved between 2024, the 1980s, and 1924.

My favorite character and period was the earliest. It featured Klaus Aaronsohn, a German-Jewish immigrant who restyles himself into Klaus von Stiegl, a mysterious German film director who finds fame and fortune in Hollywood. The 1980’s story stars artist Diane, who is Klaus’s granddaughter. She puts up with a no-good father and free-wheeling mother but manages to find artistic success. The 2024 story is about Tobey, a dropout who steals his father’s paintings. While well-drawn and interesting, I didn’t love anyone. In fact, I downright disliked some.

My criticism isn’t of the writing, which is insightful and deft and which I’d give 4.5 stars (do all authors feel compelled to curse now?), but I just needed to root for someone. The humor—the promo copy says the book is “gloriously funny”—was lost on me. I wanted this book to live up to the adjectives used to describe it—“dazzling,” “ambitious,” “daring”—but it didn’t for me.

Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for an advance copy to review.

I wanted to like this, I really tried, but I just could not make myself finish it. Jumping between characters and time frames plus the Interstitials was just too confusing and broke up the storyline. None of the characters was especially interesting or likable and the continued theme of fires and abandonment was depressing. However, the writing was excellent and I would try other books by this author, but this one was just not for me.

Didn't care for the story, didn't care for the writing, didn't care for the book. I read several chapters and then realized I was not going to finish the book, which I didn't. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Californians begins by explaining that in a few days Tobey Harlan, one of the book’s protagonists, will be arrested for the robbery of three multi-million dollar paintings that had long been thought lost to time. While examining key events in Tobey’s life, author Brian Castleberry is able to build a sprawling story about art and life and how it affects the book’s three key personalities: Tobey, Diane Steigl (cutting -edge famous painter, whose works will many decades later be stolen by Tobey) and Klaus von Steigl, (acclaimed silent film director and Diane’s grandfather). Their stories are expertly interwoven to form a layered and detailed narrative that explores the nuanced lives of these characters and the art that inspires them.

This is a richly described, character-driven novel that builds each protagonist’s world and different era in a compulsively readable way.
From the wonderful exploration of art and its place in our lives, to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and global warming in the present I appreciated the social commentary presented on each.

I really enjoyed the Californians and would definitely recommend it if you are looking for your next compelling read.

I received this free advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and feedback.

From the beginning of the book to the end, I was so drawn to the characters and this story. I absolutely loved this book! It was so well done.

The Californians is a multigenerational saga that chronicles the rise and decline of a family of 20th-century creatives. Spanning a century and four generations, the story technically follows two families, but they are spliced together in the second generation by irresponsibility and betrayal. These two themes shape the characters and drive the plot, along with the creative passion of protagonists Klaus and Diane, and a strong if unearned sense of entitlement on the part of several characters.

The structure of the novel is more complex than the typical family saga, and so requires a bit more effort on the reader’s part to follow it. Tobey, the fourth generation of this hybrid family, opens and closes the book in 2024. The other two point-of-view characters are Klaus, a silent film director in the 1920s and a television producer/director in the 1950s and ’60s, and his granddaughter Diane, a photorealist painter in the 1980s and a conceptual/performance artist in the 2000s. Each POV character’s story unfolds basically chronologically, but they are braided together so that the story jumps back and forth between and among time periods, with “interstitial” material between chapters in the form of a website, news clippings, letters, emails, text messages, ads, articles, a student essay, a blog post, book excerpts, reviews, and interviews. This material jumps all over the place chronologically, but with clear time markers.

As a big fan of braided narratives, I enjoyed the juxtapositions that resulted from this structure, though in the first third of the book, I did wish for a kind of genealogical chart to keep track of how the characters were related. Klaus’s son and Diane’s father, Percy, had a brief affair with Mrs. Harlan, who had been married to the star of Klaus’s best-known TV show. Percy left adolescent Diane with Mrs. Harlan and her son, Track (who became Tobey’s father). Diane and Track developed a close bond and looked upon themselves as “almost” siblings (though they drifted apart as adults), and Mrs. Harlan became Diane’s only reliable parental figure.

The most tragic aspect of this story results from absent or inadequate parenting in each generation—Klaus was an orphan, and in each generation lapses in parenting produce painful and sometimes disastrous results. All the characters are deeply flawed, and many readers may find them unlikable, but I also sympathized with each of the protagonists. Klaus is terribly self-centered, and single-minded in his creative life—which by its very nature is collaborative—to the detriment of many around him. But he can be very generous and is helplessly in love with his wife. Diane spends much of her life in avoidance and denial, but she is also kind-hearted and capable of real focus when she finds her direction. Tobey has terrible judgment and is prone to escapism, But he yearns to be a good person and is trying to find a purchase for his moral compass.

The tragedy of the story is bolstered by the terrible effects of the AIDS pandemic, climate change, and tech-enabled corruption. However, it is also balanced by the artistic accomplishments and creative fire of both Klaus and Diane. What I really liked about this tale of creative people wrestling with their demons is that the greatness of their art is not dependent on the demons. Rather, they achieved a measure of greatness in spite of the demons. What might they have achieved in nurturing rather than undermining circumstances? Inside that tragedy is also a scrap of hope.