Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

106 reviews

erinbarton's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

going into this book, i knew from the premise that it would share similarities with daisy jones & the six, but the similarities were just too many to avoid comparison — both books follow a fictional band during the 70s, written in the format of an oral history /documentary script, the journalist of which is the child of one of the band members who had an affair with the charismatic and magnetic female lead singer, and the journalist is aiming to unpack the mystery surrounding an infamous performance of the band’s. although opal & nev’s plot definitely moved beyond this going into the second half, it wasn’t enough to escape the comparison for me.

the oral history style i felt was actually to the book’s detriment; i didn’t feel connected to the protagonist, sunny, at all since they were so passive in the story, and none of the characters with the exception of opal had very distinctive voices that i felt warranted the script format. the execution of the script format wasn’t as seamless as daisy jones & the six, possibly due to the large amount of footnotes and editor’s notes from the protagonist. i feel this story could have been better executed in a regular prose format with the inclusion of some footnotes and news articles etc

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jashanac's review against another edition

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3.75

I quite enjoyed this -- more than I initially suspected, simply because historical fiction about a made-up rock band just doesn't strike my fancy, as a concept.

The audiobook is fantastic -- definitely recommend reading it that way if possible!

I thought the story was interesting and had a lot of nuanced conversations surrounding race and gender, throughout several decades in American history. The characters were compelling, and even the side characters were compelling and I thought really added a lot of depth to the overall story.

Ultimately though, I'm NOT really "into" rock music like that, so those elements of the story didn't captivate me as much as they probably captivate other readers. And I honestly found a lot of Sunny's portion of the story to be a bit unnecessary, as it stood. I guess I wish we had actually gotten more in-depth with her perspective and her own story. I know that wasn't exactly the point here, but it made it so that any time we stepped out of the Opal and Nev history and into Sunny's current life, I didn't care all that much.

I also did think that the ending was a bit rushed, but not enough to "ruin" the ending for me.

Overall I felt like this was immersive (it's true what everyone says -- you forget that these are NOT real people and events...!) and covered some really good conversations and themes, but ultimately it isn't a book I ever see myself re-reading, simply because while I enjoyed my time with it, I didn't LOVE my time with it, probably because I'm just not that "into" rock music and band stories in general!

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arbertram10's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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redheadragereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Immersive. I loved the characters. It is always impressive when an author can make you toy between loving and loathing a single character between the pages of one book.

Guarantee this is a great audiobook!

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ecox180's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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thehmkane's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

It's unfortunate that this book won't be able to avoid comparison to Daisy Jones, because this, to me, is a much more solid journey into that space. Timely, but nostalgic; classic, but modern.

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