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yesiamabandkid06's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
a_scorpio_reads's review
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jesscl's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
gaynorcaw's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Very unusual a big wordy in places but fantastic concept. I was completely sucked in highly recommend
megangrace's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Death, Drug use, Domestic abuse, and Abandonment
alicecharlotte's review against another edition
3.0
I bought this because I really loved The Versions of Us and thought it was extremely clever. This book was also clever, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as I thought I would. I echo the sentiments of the other more negative reviewers on here really; I just don't think I liked Cass very much. The writing was great and the characters felt so real and believable but I don't think I cared about them, which is a problem. The fact the novel actually aligns with an album release is a really cool idea (though I think it has been done before) and I think it does enhance the experience, but not enough for me to give this more than three stars.
hlame's review
It's very very good, but incredibly sad. Not a good one for the commute, unless you want folk to watch you tearing up every few minutes.
charliechan21's review
5.0
Loved the structure, characters and beautifully written prose. I'm a huge fan of Laura Barnet and am looking forward to her next great novel.
girlwithherheadinabook's review
3.0
For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2018/08/review-greatest-hits-laura-barnett.html
Laura Barnett's debut came via The Versions of Us, telling the love story of Eva and Jim through three different possibilities. It is hardly surprising that her follow-up is another high-concept novel. Greatest Hits is set across the course of a single day, with the fictional singer-songwriters Cass Wheeler selecting the songs from her vast career which have been of the greatest significance within her life. Barnett describes the story as being based 'founded on [her] belief that there is no art form more evocative than music'. Reading the book however, it was only when I got to the end that I learned that Barnett had collaborated with Mercury-nominated singer Kathryn Williams to set the lyrics which Barnett had written for Cass' songs to music, creating the album Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits. I have a feeling that Barnett wanted me to have this playing while I was reading but alas, I was unaware. This had the regrettable consequence that when I finally did listen to the album, it was not quite what I had been hearing in my head - Williams' voice is beautiful but I had been imagining someone closer to Laura Marling or Beth Nielson Chapman.
As Cass gets up and potters about her day, she thinks back over her life all the way back to her arrival in the world, born to an indifferent and unhappy mother and absent-minded vicar father. We are granted the perspective of an omniscient narrator, seeing Cass even during the moments which she must surely not remember. In the present, we can see that darkness swirls in Cass' past. She describes herself as 'ex-musician. Ex-mother. Ex-daughter. Ex-wife' and lives as a recluse in a farmhouse in a remote village, having long abandoned her career following a stint in rehab. How did she get there and, now in her sixties, can Cass find a way of moving forward?
The heart of The Versions of Us was Eva; no matter which version she was in, she was both the book's heroine and its most compelling character. Clearly, Barnett felt the same as she pops up again in Version One form as a journalist and early admirer of Cass' work. The problem with Greatest Hits is that Cass Wheeler never quite measures up to Eva. She was quite an inert protagonist and although her struggles should have seemed interesting, somehow I never quite warmed to her. Her mother's early abandonment of the family should have felt traumatic, but yet it never really did. Her toxic marriage should have seemed dramatic, but it felt cliched. I did not feel the connection that I had hoped for. Part of this may be due to how overcrowded the cast list was. I understand that friends and colleagues come and go within the life of a musician but it was really difficult to keep track of who was who. There were so many characters who were clearly intended to be of significance to Cass but tracing back the original connection got a bit much.
That being said, Greatest Hits does raise a lot of interesting questions. As with The Versions of Us, there is the question of how far one can achieve professional success as a couple. Cass meets Ivor and immediately feels a strong sexual and musical chemistry. The two of them form a band and start performing but then it is Cass who is spotted by a record label. Ivor is both attracted to and jealous of Cass' success, their relationship steadily curdling as he attempts to satisfy himself in a role as her backing musician. Over time, he comes to eclipse her. The violence and betrayal that comes to characterise their marriage make for unpleasant reading. Based on her two novels so far, Barnett seems to depict success within both the professional and personal sphere to be akin to managing a see-saw, a rather bleak conclusion.
Another interesting question - not one I felt the novel entirely answered - was how one can keep hold of one's identity when it has passed into the public domain. Cass was born Maria Cassandra Wheeler but abandoned her first name when her mother left. She changed her look when she started performing. She was encouraged to change to suit shifting trends within music. Her words, her lyrics, her songs were all subject to public scrutiny. When it all went wrong, she retreated from the world. Do we see her regaining control? When the name 'Cass Wheeler' has a significance across the world, how can Cass Wheeler herself decide who the real one is? Any kind of public presence, even one as limited as my own as an online blogger and book reviewer, leaves one vulnerable to the opinions of others. People will read your words, form their own judgments and decide for themselves who you are. In choosing her 'greatest hits', surely Cass is trying to reassert control over her own narrative, to decide on her own version of her past.
The idea of choosing songs as marking posts for one's past may not be entirely original but it remains interesting. I liked Barnett's lyrics, or at least as I had imagined them myself - my personal favourite was 'Common Ground'. Interestingly though, I tested out the official album on my musician partner and he felt that the lyrics were unnecessarily descriptive and overly detailed. When I explained that they had been written by a novelist, this apparently explained a lot. I have had a lifelong habit of misremembering the words to songs and then clinging stubbornly to my personal interpretation - does it matter more what the artist meant originally or what I, the listener, choose to take from it? I have always believed that no two readers ever read the same book, do any two people ever hear the same song? Does Cass have the final word on what each song represents?
With a quotation from Mrs Dalloway at its opening and a circadian structure, Barnett appears to be attempting to echo Woolf. As someone who has never connected with Virginia Woolf no matter how much I tried, I wonder if this is another reason why Greatest Hits was for me a disappointment. Cass wanders through her day and everyone tiptoes around her. She is a strange creature set apart from those around her and this sense of disconnect extends to the reader. What makes it more frustrating is that there are still snapshots of Barnett at her best, of love lost and deep friendship, but these are passing moments compared to the warmth of The Versions of Us. Artistically, Greatest Hits is impressive but emotionally there is a void that I was not quite able to overcome.
Laura Barnett's debut came via The Versions of Us, telling the love story of Eva and Jim through three different possibilities. It is hardly surprising that her follow-up is another high-concept novel. Greatest Hits is set across the course of a single day, with the fictional singer-songwriters Cass Wheeler selecting the songs from her vast career which have been of the greatest significance within her life. Barnett describes the story as being based 'founded on [her] belief that there is no art form more evocative than music'. Reading the book however, it was only when I got to the end that I learned that Barnett had collaborated with Mercury-nominated singer Kathryn Williams to set the lyrics which Barnett had written for Cass' songs to music, creating the album Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits. I have a feeling that Barnett wanted me to have this playing while I was reading but alas, I was unaware. This had the regrettable consequence that when I finally did listen to the album, it was not quite what I had been hearing in my head - Williams' voice is beautiful but I had been imagining someone closer to Laura Marling or Beth Nielson Chapman.
As Cass gets up and potters about her day, she thinks back over her life all the way back to her arrival in the world, born to an indifferent and unhappy mother and absent-minded vicar father. We are granted the perspective of an omniscient narrator, seeing Cass even during the moments which she must surely not remember. In the present, we can see that darkness swirls in Cass' past. She describes herself as 'ex-musician. Ex-mother. Ex-daughter. Ex-wife' and lives as a recluse in a farmhouse in a remote village, having long abandoned her career following a stint in rehab. How did she get there and, now in her sixties, can Cass find a way of moving forward?
The heart of The Versions of Us was Eva; no matter which version she was in, she was both the book's heroine and its most compelling character. Clearly, Barnett felt the same as she pops up again in Version One form as a journalist and early admirer of Cass' work. The problem with Greatest Hits is that Cass Wheeler never quite measures up to Eva. She was quite an inert protagonist and although her struggles should have seemed interesting, somehow I never quite warmed to her. Her mother's early abandonment of the family should have felt traumatic, but yet it never really did. Her toxic marriage should have seemed dramatic, but it felt cliched. I did not feel the connection that I had hoped for. Part of this may be due to how overcrowded the cast list was. I understand that friends and colleagues come and go within the life of a musician but it was really difficult to keep track of who was who. There were so many characters who were clearly intended to be of significance to Cass but tracing back the original connection got a bit much.
That being said, Greatest Hits does raise a lot of interesting questions. As with The Versions of Us, there is the question of how far one can achieve professional success as a couple. Cass meets Ivor and immediately feels a strong sexual and musical chemistry. The two of them form a band and start performing but then it is Cass who is spotted by a record label. Ivor is both attracted to and jealous of Cass' success, their relationship steadily curdling as he attempts to satisfy himself in a role as her backing musician. Over time, he comes to eclipse her. The violence and betrayal that comes to characterise their marriage make for unpleasant reading. Based on her two novels so far, Barnett seems to depict success within both the professional and personal sphere to be akin to managing a see-saw, a rather bleak conclusion.
Another interesting question - not one I felt the novel entirely answered - was how one can keep hold of one's identity when it has passed into the public domain. Cass was born Maria Cassandra Wheeler but abandoned her first name when her mother left. She changed her look when she started performing. She was encouraged to change to suit shifting trends within music. Her words, her lyrics, her songs were all subject to public scrutiny. When it all went wrong, she retreated from the world. Do we see her regaining control? When the name 'Cass Wheeler' has a significance across the world, how can Cass Wheeler herself decide who the real one is? Any kind of public presence, even one as limited as my own as an online blogger and book reviewer, leaves one vulnerable to the opinions of others. People will read your words, form their own judgments and decide for themselves who you are. In choosing her 'greatest hits', surely Cass is trying to reassert control over her own narrative, to decide on her own version of her past.
The idea of choosing songs as marking posts for one's past may not be entirely original but it remains interesting. I liked Barnett's lyrics, or at least as I had imagined them myself - my personal favourite was 'Common Ground'. Interestingly though, I tested out the official album on my musician partner and he felt that the lyrics were unnecessarily descriptive and overly detailed. When I explained that they had been written by a novelist, this apparently explained a lot. I have had a lifelong habit of misremembering the words to songs and then clinging stubbornly to my personal interpretation - does it matter more what the artist meant originally or what I, the listener, choose to take from it? I have always believed that no two readers ever read the same book, do any two people ever hear the same song? Does Cass have the final word on what each song represents?
With a quotation from Mrs Dalloway at its opening and a circadian structure, Barnett appears to be attempting to echo Woolf. As someone who has never connected with Virginia Woolf no matter how much I tried, I wonder if this is another reason why Greatest Hits was for me a disappointment. Cass wanders through her day and everyone tiptoes around her. She is a strange creature set apart from those around her and this sense of disconnect extends to the reader. What makes it more frustrating is that there are still snapshots of Barnett at her best, of love lost and deep friendship, but these are passing moments compared to the warmth of The Versions of Us. Artistically, Greatest Hits is impressive but emotionally there is a void that I was not quite able to overcome.