Book Review: The Daydreams | Laura Hankin

Every generation is captivated by the teen stars we grew up loving. For many of those stars, the toll fame and manipulation in the entertainment industry took on them in their youth makes adulthood difficult. For the lucky ones, their fame translates to adulthood, for others, they escape the spotlight and find a way to heal and live normal lives, and for a select few, the damage is too great for them to escape. They live through adulthood haunted by the ghosts of their past self.

In Laura Hankin’s latest novel, the fallout of teen stardom is explored through the former cast of a teen television series reuniting for the first time.

About the Book | The Daydreams

Characters

Katherine (Kat) was the villain of the series, often playing the snarky counterpoint trying to sabotage the beloved lead. In real life, Kat has left the show behind and worked hard to become a successful attorney in Washington D. C. She is dating a fellow attorney named Miheer.

Liana was the best friend and token black character on the show. Often overlooked, Liana never got full solo numbers despite being the most talented singer on the show. In real life, Liana has become the trophy wife to a famous football player named Javier, earning the wealth and status that eluded her on the show.

Summer and Noah were the central couple and teen heartthrobs on the series. Summer was the golden girl—pure, virginal, and sweet. But off the show, Summer’s life has spiraled out of control, leading to a series of tabloid headlines over the years documenting her behaviors while intoxicated, stints in rehab, and relapses. Meanwhile Noah is the only former cast member to continue acting, slowly cementing himself as a household name with all the success that the others didn’t achieve.

Plot

A deliciously entertaining novel about the stars of a popular teen show from the early 2000s—and the reunion special, thirteen years after their scandalous flameout, that will either be their last chance at redemption, or destroy them all for good.

Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded, leaving everyone scrambling to understand why.

Afterward, the four stars went down very different paths. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC. Liana is the bored wife of a famous athlete. Noah, the show’s golden boy, emerged unscathed and is poised to become a household name. And Summer, the object of Noah’s fictional (and maybe real-life) affections, is the cautionary tale.

But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface—including the real reason behind their downfall.

Will this reunion be a chance to make things right? Or will it be the biggest mess the world has ever seen? No matter what, the ratings will be wild.

Review | The Daydreams

Seeing the rise and fall of your teen idols is almost a right of passage as you reach adulthood. For some of us, we’re lucky enough to see them reach maturity to share their stories. From early starlets such as Judy Garland, to Carrie Fischer, to Paris Hilton, to Britney Spears—there are countless stories of child and teen stars who went through difficult times. Even those who escaped the worst of the aftermath of fame and faded into obscurity, we crave to see back.

All of this and more are explored in Laura Hankin’s novel, The Daydreams. In an interview with the folks at Shondaland, Hankin said:

“So many of the starlets of that time have really struggled in the years since, and as a society, we’re starting to recognize that, where we’re like, ‘Oh, wow, can you believe what was really going on behind the scenes? How awful the media was to all these other people?’ But the media wouldn’t have so relentlessly written these stories if there wasn’t an audience for them. So, I was interested in writing a book about: If we acknowledge that we were wrong, and there was more going on behind the scenes, how do these women forgive us? How do we forgive ourselves? How do we all move forward?”

In The Daydreams, four teen actors and singers were members of a fictional band by the same name as the book on a tv show. The line between reality and fiction was blurred, with the characters being named after the actors. But their personas weren’t necessarily the same as on the shows. And the pressure of the spotlight, manipulative industry leaders, and the stress of growing up in the spotlight led to a dramatic and chaotic live show in 2005 that ultimately was the last time the four would appear together.

Until 2018 when a reunion show is proposed. All four had different reasons to return to the stage for one final performance. Told in flashbacks between the days on the show in the early 2000s and present day leading up the live reunion, The Daydreams tells the story of four people who experienced the rise and fall of stardom. Well, three, since Noah never really took the hit the girls did.

Kat is our primary narrator and I loved her perspective as someone who went on to have closest to a normal life off the show. But that doesn’t mean Kat has escaped the trauma of what happened. Every character had secrets they were holding onto from the collapse of the show. Some that could save them and others that could bury them. The question on the reader’s mind is whether they will spill everything and what the fallout will be.

I initially wanted to hear more balance in POVs from all four main characters, but by the second half I understood why we stuck mostly with Kat and I grew to appreciate why she was the narrator of the story. The characters were all redeemable and even likable, which made me want them to make it through the reunion winning what they felt they’d lost many years before.

A story of trauma, healing, redemption, and accepting our past, present, and futures selves as worthy people. I was satisfied with how it ended, but I also wanted more which is a hallmark of a great book.

Starting as a salacious ripped-from-the-headlines story and delivering a heartfelt group of characters who are still living their stories in real life one day at a time.

About the Author | Laura Hankin

Laura Hankin is an author, screenwriter, and performer who writes novels that you can read on a beach but also for a book club. Her books include THE DAYDREAMS, one of the “Best Beach Reads of 2023” (Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more), HAPPY & YOU KNOW IT, a Book of the Month and Library Reads selection, and A SPECIAL PLACE FOR WOMEN, as seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Hankin has some TV/film projects in development, and her musical comedy has been featured in outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times. Hankin based in Washington, DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.