Reviews with content warning for Car accident - The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

Extremely slow paced. Found myself getting frustrated with how frequently the story bounced from character to character. It made it seem choppy and was hard to get the whole picture. Right as new information would come to light it would cut to a new perspective. I found myself having all these questions and very little answers.
The story started to snowball and pick up pace as you realize not one of the Gloss girls really knew anything about the others. All the secrets started coming to light and answers finally started arriving. The ending was very sad but it was satisfactory. The perspective from Cassidy's sister broke my heart, even her family knew next to nothing about her.
I enjoyed the look at the underbelly of fame that this book gave us. The emotions that were written into this book carried very well, the deep sadness and loneliness radiated whenever we were reading from Cassidy's perspective.

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icieri's review

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

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avabudavari's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

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maggies's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

I had high hopes for this book, but I found it fell short of other similar novels about fame and its consequences, like Daisy Jones & The Six or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo—maybe Taylor Jenkins Reid is just really good at that theme?
There was a lot to recommend it at the start, great writing and an interesting premise, but ultimately it lost its way pretty quickly. Perhaps because there was so much going on that none of it could actually be afforded the proper attention and care? Sure, that can be taken as a reflection of real life, but doesn't make for a particularly enjoyable book, in my opinion.

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jackieyvette's review

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

I read it because I wanted a book that was similar to Daisy Jones & the Six and this one was listed everywhere as something in the same realm. I loved the premise idea, early 2000s pop girl groups are my favorite, but I think this book was just too slow. I felt like it took getting through more than half the book to really get anything of interest. I like Cassidy and Merry’s storylines, but I feel like Rose and Yumi’s fell flat which sucked because I actually really like the idea of Yumi, but Rose was just unlikeable from beginning to end.
I wouldn’t say it’s really anything like DJ&TS other than it being the music industry, but maybe I would have liked it more if I would have found it as a stand alone book and not a similarity between the two.

Crying Score: None, but Cassidy and Merry had me for a minute.

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harleysmiller's review

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emotional reflective sad fast-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

My first 5 start read of 2022! I absolutely loved this book. I’m a sucker for books about musical groups and this is just so good. It hits a lot of important topics and does so very well. I liked how there were nods to real events/fashion/etc. of the early 2000s. It kept me hooked from the beginning and I definitely recommend !

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enyaceleste's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.0

This is the story of the rise and fall of a teen pop star and oh boy was it sad. Told through multiple narrative perspectives and two timelines it read like a murder mystery and felt incredibly fast-paced. I thoroughly enjoyed the diverse cast of flawed characters and the exploration of themes including sexuality, eating disorders and the dark side of fame.

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