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

this book was written in such a convincing/interwoven way that I had to stop myself at several points and be like "no, opal & nev was not an actual musical duo"

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kimveach's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was amazing! I loved it. Please listen to it. I'm sure it's good in print, but the full-cast audio makes this a performance. The book is in a similar documentary style as Daisy Jones & The Six, but it's also different in so many ways. I loved this one a little more.

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jennikreads's review against another edition

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fast-paced

5.0

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morganperks's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative 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

4.0

The full cast audiobook was riveting. With all the real names mixed in, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a fictional l story. It's unfortunate that this book keeps getting compared to Daisy Jones because Opal and Nev is its own story. It dives deep into racism, sexism, and social justice in the music industry. Something about the pacing was off. There were a few parts that dragged. Overall it was a great book!

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katsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

"I believe in myself above all.”

“I got a better question for you. Why are you so deeply invested in proving I'm scared? Does a Black person showing they're scared make you feel safer? I suggest you sit back and interrogate that.”

The format of this book was super cool and intriguing. I really loved how it made me feel like I was really hearing the characters and getting to know them yet somehow also kept them at arm's length. It was hard to truly like any of the characters. I felt like it helped it feel like they were real people. Every person had their own imperfections and flaws that made them feel more realistic. I felt like the social commentary was really impactful, as well. It was really interesting to read a story about the artistic and creative labor of black women and how it's been exploited throughout history. I struggled with the ending a little bit. I wanted a bigger conclusion and resolution. I wanted everything for Opal. But on the other hand, would that have made it less realistic? This isn't one of those books that necessarily has a nice happy bow tying up all the loose ends. It's fiction but I've already stated that I liked how realistic it was. Perhaps, the real world is what actually disappoints me.

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katymat18's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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leandrathetbrzero's review against another edition

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informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I am frustrated with Dawnie Walton’s The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, and that is not strictly because it is a mouthful to remember and type in full! My frustrations and disappointments come from my desire to love this book - for its massively important themes and messages about historical and present-day racism and oppression - but my inability to ignore the hypocrisy of certain characters…one of whom I am pretty sure we are meant to root for. The character I struggle the most to like is Opal, our fierce “Black Girl Magic” protagonist, and I wish this wasn’t the case. I LOVED the scenes involving television interviews or appearances (i.e., her appearance with Nev on Cavette is spectacular!). I did not love that she knowingly becomes the mistress of a married man and, after that man dies tragically, her nonexistent attempt to empathize with the narrator (the daughter of said man) or her mother (his wife).

Twice Opal’s best friend and stylist, Virgil, makes comments that infuriated me. Once, he scolds Sunny (the narrator) for questioning Opal’s sincerity, “her heart,” since that heart paid for all of Sunny’s education. Honestly, fuck that. As if Sunny owes Opal anything when, in reality, that money was what Opal felt she owed Sunny’s mother after embarrassing her and taking part in events that led to her husband’s death and left her daughter without a father. Sunny owes Opal nothing. The second comment from Virgil is something to the effect of suggesting that Sunny would find it difficult to understand just how many people Opal has helped or changed. Again, bitch, let’s get one thing straight. There are too many people to count who have done great things, and they 100% deserve acknowledgement for that, but if they have done terrible, selfish things, then they also deserve judgment and repercussions. One does not simply cancel out the other. And I felt like this book kept suggesting that it could, likely unintentionally, but it annoyed me.

Opal’s relationship with Nev also left a bad taste in my mouth because while he was

the “bad guy” in a sense,

the only flaw I could see outside of that was that he was described as “childish” at times when, in my opinion, in the scenes this childishness is described, I thought he was fully in his right. Opal betrayed him the first time by not confiding in him and letting him be caught off-guard, and then she abandons him when he is addicted to pills, which she is totally in her right to do, BUT when he gets sober and on track again, she walks back into his life to reap the benefits of a clean Nev. I would understand his “childish” reactions.

Moving on to the narrator, Sunny: I wish she had more backbone like her mother. I absolutely loved the chapter that includes her mother’s voice, and I wish more space was dedicated to her. Her entrance into the novel was actually when I was considering changing my 2-star review to possibly even a 4-star if it ended the way I thought it would (based on her mother’s words). Unfortunately, the ending was not what I hoped; it was what I dreaded.

Sorry to those who love this book. I am only just realizing that my love-hate relationship with a book is very dependent on its characters and my ability to root for/against them appropriately.

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