The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

i get the comps to daisy jones & the six, but honestly this was a beast of its own

delving into the world of late 90's/early 2000's teen popstar-dom had me skeptical at first, but i'm glad that we got to see extremely realistic of the behind the scenes actions of a girl group from start to finish. the fact that the girls didn't like each other, all of them had no idea what fame would entail, and the ugly business behind the curtain with directors and managers and execs all felt incredibly real and equally heartbreaking. it was great to see how each of these girls handled the limelight during and after gloss' peak, and i could have honestly imagined each of them being real people.

i think my only gripe (and it's a big one) was that their time in the limelight felt so short-lived, and there wasn't really a description of how ubiquitous and popular gloss became. popstars and celebrities can cause entire revolutions, from hair and fashion trends to political campaigns. like, ok, we heard how popular gloss got and that it lead to some unruly fans, but what was the scene of america like in the wake of gloss? were people dressing like cherry? did americans explore japanese culture because of yumi? these are the things missing from this book that i think would've really made it all feel real. but with that missing, it felt like they were one-hit wonders, a blip of fame before fading into the limelight with no reason to be in the history books.

I liked this book. Liked not loved. There was a lot going on with this book. I read Taylor Jenkin Reid's ‘Daisy Jones & the Six' last year and absolutely loved it. I knew this book was not going to be as good (saw some lackluster reviews on here before I started it), but it had a lot of the same themes. High profile band, sex, drugs, abuse, anxiety, betrayal, pride, you know, the usual. But I am still wracking my brain for why the hell this book had to be over 400 pages when the ending literally didn't start until page 400. Yup, the total count was 419 and the end started at 400. It was really trash. It was like all of this background was given just for you to not finish the story. Like when someone tells you this really elaborate joke with all this preamble and then the punchline isn't even a punchline its just a statement so then you wonder why you wasted minutes of you life getting caught up in the details and listening to some schmuck who doesn't know what they are talking about. Yeah, that was this book.

Overall I felt that the things that were supposed to be big scandalous plot points were just not intense enough, and the things that were subtle points had too much focus on them in the scheme of things. I really think if you are going to write a book that opens up with someone's funeral, you better spend the rest of the book hitting that “Unraveling” home. Maybe I have just built up a tolerance to violence, mistreatment and abuse though my usual psychological thriller/murder mystery books, but I don't know, this kind of seemed a little lackluster. What I think should have happened was everything that did, but shortened to like 300 pages, shit should hit the fan from 300-350, then the ending could be 20 for a total of 370 pages (50 less than actual).

(Probably 3.5, rounding up.) Extremely readable and compelling story of the rise and fall of a fictional girl group in the early 2000s - I was 18-19 at the time this book is set, so it hurts my heart a little to tag this as “historical fiction,” but it also means I remember this era of pop culture extremely well. I wanted a little more characterization/depth to the other girls back in the Gloss days (especially Rose), and maybe a little more about what happened to them all after the split. I guess maybe that would've been too dark, but I found myself wanting to know what they'd all been doing since then. Very good for a debut novel and I'm interested to see what comes next from this author!

This book is for sure a page turner and very engrossing. The inside story of a teen pop girl group and all of the trauma they faced becoming famous.

The characters are very interesting and the plot moves quickly. I do wish that there was more resolution but that's a small gripe. Easily enjoyed this book.