The Final Review of Opal & Nev reads as an oral history of a flame-haired Britain and a AfroPunk black women that form a duo that storms New York city in the early 70's. 

S. Sunny Shelton, music magazine editor, traces the the rise and fall of the short lived group, and their tumultuous gig that took her father, Jimmy's life. Shelton literally pieces together the night he died with interviews from the wild cast of characters involved with making of the music. She thought she knew the story leading up to the infamous show but as she digs deeper, a revelation from an unexpected source threatens to blow-up the renewal of friendships. 

The book also provides glimpses into Opal's life from her childhood in Detroit to womanhood where she pushes the norms of fashion and attitude. Embroiled in duo's stardom are race relations and the Black Panthers in the 1970's and then again in their comeback thirty years later in the Black Lives Matter movement. The book looks into the real history of violence against black people with this fictional duo in a heartbreaking, beautiful manner. 

"Because the more things change, the more they stay the same - that's what Jimmy would say. What's the same right now is I'm still pissed off....and white people, be warned. You still can't say n*****". - Opal 

It is captivating debut novel with a strong black female protagonist that is absolutely worth the read. 

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC for an honest review. Publication date March 30, 2021.

I'm very conflicted on this book. I definitely think it's worth the read, especially for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six. The story of Opal & Nev explores some really important aspects of racism and sexism and the evolution of racism and sexism in the past several decades.

However, I really struggled with wanting to continue reading this one. There didn't seem to be a plot so much as just a slow character-driven story, which I usually love, but the characters really weren't as sketched out as I'd expect from a character-driven story. I never felt connected to most of the characters, not because of who they were but because I never really understood who they were. I also felt that so much of the book just built up to single events with pages and pages of every detail of every person who was there's perspective and it was really hard to stay interested when I was already not invested.

Overall, I was bored. I would not have finished reading this if it weren't a review copy, but I do think that people who love this story telling format and who maybe have more interest in piecing together a story would definitely enjoy this.

This is one of the best novels I have ever read. It’s one of the few books that I can say made me think about society and what role I play in it. This is also the first book where I understood the slow narrative of the first half of the book was intentional and actually served a purpose that helped define the second half of the book where the depth of the narrative becomes more compelling. It is also one of the few books where I had to put my book down after a huge plot reveal because I needed to digest the information I had just read. 

Like others, I picked this book up because of my love for Daisy Jones & The Six. The storytelling is done in a similar format reminiscent of watching a music documentary and that’s about where the similarities end between the two. Daisy Jones was more about the emotions and intricacies of the bands’ relationships whereas Opal & Nev is about the emotional impact racism has played over the past 50-60 years in the United States. 

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev is an incredibly moving story that follows Sunny, a Black editor and journalist, who is writing a book about the multircial rock and roll duo Opal & Nev. The story interweaves Sunny’s personal ties with the overarching story of Opal & Nev’s music history while also making a statement about music’s influence and impact on the larger society, especially surrounding race. Walton does a phenomenal job of portraying a variety of characters that range from Opal’s push against the white men in her life to receive equal treatment as her white male counterpart to the Confederate flag’s symbolism for a Southern colleague. 

One critique I do have is that I think the relationship between Opal and Nev was glossed over. It never felt like they were as close as was claimed. 

Overall, I loved this book for it’s beautiful story and commentary on a variety of social issues.

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev is written in an oral history format - bouncing back between the past and the present. It is the story of two musical icons, Opal Jewel and Nev Charles, and how they got their start in the industry, what caused the breakdown in their duo act, and where they are today. It is also the story of Sunny, the music journalist writing the oral history, and her life-long connection to Opal & Nev. 

Though dubbed "historical fiction", this novel is incredibly timely and the final act of the story ends up in present day. A huge theme of the novel is racial discrimination and racial violence - and the sad reality of how little has changed from the 60s/70s to present day. I highly recommend this book - it both covers important topics while also being a fun look at music culture and celebrity culture.

Walton's "The Final Revival of Opal & Nev" takes the tact of telling the story through a series of rock journalist interviews with a former musical duo who had a brief claim to fame as a duo and their promoters, managers, and family members.  Opal & Nev were an Afro-Punk seventies duo combining the work of Nev, a British singer-songwriter from Birmingham, England, with a skinny bald militant African-American woman out of Detroit.  What Walton does do well here is makes fiction seem like journalism.  It's so real that perhaps at some point you'll find yourself checking Wikipedia to see if this duo ever existed with Nev going on to solo success and Opal fading into cult obscurity until the big reunion concert decades later.  The journalistic interviews curiously are done by the daughter of a fictional drummer of the outfit who Opal had a loud proud affair with, Jimmy, and who we later find died tragically in a riot.  This gives the interviews a personal vested interest.  

The techniques used here worked best at through the first third of the book, particularly as we are introduced to the childhoods of the main characters and, once again, they feel so real, so authentic, that it doesn't feel like fiction.  You hear how innocent and vulnerable Opal is when she comes to New York to make her debut.  

The climax of the book is a concert that became a sort of Altamont II with its own band of Hell's Angels type bikers causing untold havoc and death.  The author manages to shoehorn in a controversy about the confederate flag as the cause of the riot, showing to an extent how one side (Opal) found it completely offensive for what the Confederacy stood for and the other saw it a symbol of rebelliousness like the General Lee car in Dukes of Hazard without regard for its deeper history.  Of course, neither side can hear each other.  

Although the final third of the book drags a bit, particularly when compared to the beginning of the book, that is often do with real life stories as the most exciting parts are often about the rise to stardom.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. A wonderful set in the 1970s music scene. Raw, gritty and honest. What amazes me is how far we have come, but so little has changed. Highly recommend.

4.5 Stars

Shared from multiple perspectives, this story centers around a young Black woman named Opal Jewel and the people in her life over time. A Once-Upon-A-Time story of a young, talented, daring Black woman with a promising future in the 1970’s who joins British Neville Charles and his band, their meteoric rise to fame, a fame that ended almost as quickly as it began. One of those groups that rises meteorically, but dissolves unexpectedly, virtually overnight. A catastrophic episode at a concert ends in the death of their drummer, Jimmy Curtis, at the hands of a group of racists that attended to see the band that was set to close the night in 1971. The controversy that follows that night makes them untouchable and they go their separate ways.

Years later, magazine editor S. Sunny Curtis, daughter of drummer Jimmy Curtis, hears a rumour about the possibility that Nev and Sunny plan to get together to perform for a 2017 reunion concert.

Shared from the perspectives of Opal, and her half-sister born two years after Opal, Pearl, as well as Sunny, their stories eventually merge into one story with a uniquely epic ending. Opal’s father, an older man, died before she was old enough to have any memories of him, and Pearl’s father was killed during the war in Korea. Near the beginning of this story, Opal shares their story of their love of singing in the church choir, a love that obviously led to more, their Pastor referring to Opal as a ’tiny wisp of a thing, real chocolate-skinned and swaying side to side… Little Miss Showboat. That was Opal. That is Opal.’

Sunny is working on writing a book about her father’s story, and the story of Opal and Nev’s partnership, the band, and the ultimate unfolding of the horrifying event that took her father’s life, adding another perspective.

There is much more to this story than the concert, and this does have some elements that on the surface are similar to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six, but while there is that shared element of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll at play, as well as it being shared from varying perspectives, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev tackles the more sinister topic of racism, so while they shared certain themes, this isn’t quite as lightly entertaining, although it is thoroughly engaging - if horrifyingly relevant. This story will undoubtedly stay with me longer.


Pub Date: 30 Mar 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Simon & Schuster
#TheFinalRevivalofOpalNev #NetGalley

As far as I am aware, Daisy Jones an the Six introduced a style of writing that imitated a non-fictional narrative style while telling a fictional story about a fictional band. The Final Revival of Opal & Nev takes that stylistic narrative and brings it to a whole new level! When I tell you I will be gushing about this book the rest of my life, I mean I will be gushing about this book the rest of my life! This is even more engaging, more profound, and I was just wow'd by it from beginning to end.

The characters just jumped off of the page, the narrative style was one I was already predisposed to like, and the overall plot was just good each step of the way. It was constantly building and constantly had me ready to pick it up to read. It is a long read, but it never lags. Each page is brilliant. Each page felt like there was the possibility that this could be non-fiction and this band felt like a real band. The events also were horrifyingly real. The characters themselves could have been real, living and breathing people.

This is a book I already plan on reading again in the future. I only do that with books I really love. This is one of them. The thing that is unique about this one is that I knew I was going to love it from the first page! The first page was just a car revving up for a win towards the finish line and I was there for the ride. Just pick it up to read the first couple of pages and I promise you will be sucked in ready to see where the narrative is going to take you.

A promising debut.  Complex plot.  Engaging, vivid characters.  Compelling prose.  Important themes.

This book captured my attention from page one. I did not think I was going to enjoy, it but I found the lives of the characters and how their stories intersected to be very interesting! I really liked reading about the main character/author as well and was glad to see that she was able to fill in the blanks on a lot of things from her past regarding how she grew up. My favorite person in the book was Opal. Her childhood was very interesting in my opinion. I was able to read this book quicker than I imagined because it held my interest from the beginning to the end.

Wow, this was a great book released at an important time in the world where we are battling same issues the main characters in this book. Final Revival of Opal and Nev takes place over a wide span of years from 1960's to current day. For me this distance brings into focus how much the issues from the past are still prevalent today. Almost as if a magnifying glass was put over the issues and bringing them into focus for us to see more clearly. 

Dawnie Walton evokes true emotions with her narrative of Sunny and Opal’s relationships.  In an interesting turn, not exactly a twist,  but Sunny's desire for information about her father almost transfers that parental approval to Opal. I loved how this relationship evolves and transforms throughout the book. 

Music in central in this as title implies – this is a story of a white boy and black woman joining to form a unique, to the time, punk rock duo.Descriptions of the music, beats and bits of lyrics had me wishing I could listen to the songs. 
The story introduces an extremely talented black drummer who was brutally beaten for the most part for simply being black and at the wrong place at wrong time. This leads to highlight the connection between the riot in 1970 at one of their concerts to Sunny's character, who was chosen to write about this punk duo from 60’s in the 2000’s. Would there still be an audience for their unique sound? Will they be fully accepted on talent alone and not have race play a part?

I admire how openly honest and vulnerable the writing of this book must have been especially in current racial atmosphere. This is a good book that sadly shows how much work is yet to be done with regards to racial equality.  Read it and then take the time to be present in your life. Look around, stand up for what's right,  call out what's wrong. Help make the world a more peaceful unified place for all.

I was given an advanced copy to read from netgalley,in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed above are mine alone and have not been influenced by anything or anyone. Thank-you to Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this advances copy uncorrected proof.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for granting me a copy of this ARC.... I don't even know where to begin. Being a fan of Daisy Jones and the Six- I thought I would be picking up a fun pop culture read with all the elements one can expect from a rock & roll history  about a band that hadn't played together in years (money, drugs, lust, great music, the cost of fame at the price of freedom of expression etc) but what I got was so much richer than what I expected. Walton's debut (still in shock this is a debut) tackled more than that - highlighting issues of race, sexism, addiction and the nuances within the music industry. It was hard to believe this was a piece of fiction - her characters were so poignant and authentic,  her descriptions of setting and place so vivid - and the story itself so relevant and realistic - I was captivated.  I will definitely be recommending this book to my network!

I loved Daisy Jones and the Six - it’s oral history format just really worked for me.  So, I was anxious to see what Walton would do with it. Well let me tell you, she moves it up a notch.   This is so much more than the story of a musical duo.  It’s the story of our times.  
The writing is something special.  “That’s what the South was like for me.   Sweet on the first taste, but something gone sour underneath. It’ll try to trick you, now - the sugar berries and the quiet and those lovely spread out houses.  But after that day with Auntie Rose, I could smell the rotten, too.”   
Walton totally nails the time and the place. She intersperses just enough of what was happening in the real world to anchor the story. But beyond that,  I felt like I was in the recording studio, the initial concert and at the reunion.  
Opal and Nev are both fully fleshed out, with all the strengths and faults. I loved watching how their different decisions led to how their careers and lives played out.  And let me just say, I wasn’t expecting this to be suspenseful, but boy, was it.   As the story progresses, I couldn’t wait to see how it would play out.  The story rings true.   By taking us through the years, we see how little progress we’ve made.   Put this one on your radar.  I’m convinced it’ll be one of the hits of 2021.  
My thanks to netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

This book resonated with me on so many levels.

In 1969, I moved from a large city to a small Canadian town near the US border. For the first time in my life, I was exposed to US news and a world much larger than me. I watched a country torn apart by race riots and protests against Vietnam, things that made no sense to me as a young girl. As I moved towards my teens, I started listening to rock music partly as an expression of that horror I felt for what was going on around me. I kept wondering how I'd missed listening to Opal & Nev as Opal so perfectly expressed what I was feeling back then--that rage against oppression, the lack of a voice (for me as a girl, for her as not only a woman, but a black woman in a hostile country), that feeling that you have less to offer because of training or upbringing (and suppressing your voice as a result).

This was a book as much about SerahLena and her quest to figure out what happened to her father, how Opal fit into that story and her own growth into her voice and power. Her story is just as important as Opal's story, just as moving, resonates just as much for me.

This book is moved me deeply as I watch again as a country is torn apart by the same things we witnessed or lived through in the 70s. Opal and SarahLena scream (or whisper, or sing) that black lives matter, that women's voices matter. Will we listen this time?

3.5 stars.  The Final Revival of Opal and Nev tells the story of a fictional 1970s rock pair — Nev, who is white and British, and Opal, who is Black and American — who began their rise to fame after the racial killing of their drummer.  Although often compared to Daisy Jones & The Six (which I thoroughly enjoyed), this novel is much more serious and darker.  True, it has the backdrop of rock music and its story is told predominantly through “oral history” (basically a series of interviews), the comparison with Daisy Jones & The Six ends there.  What this novel really focuses on is hard issues such as innate prejudice, sexism and race relations.

While I found the novel fascinating in many respects, some of the side stories seemed superfluous and some characters were just too odd for me.  I also found it to be just a bit drawn out and too long.  Overall, however, I did find this to be an enjoyable read and was especially impressed that this is a debut novel.

I really enjoyed this book but I felt like the only thing that made this book kind of like Daisy Jones was the fact that it was about a band. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed this and it covered a lot of important topics. It was a lot heavier than I was anticipating. I still enjoyed it though.

It’s hard to imagine a book more designed to succeed in 2021 than this one. Reminiscent of both ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ and ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ by way of Black Lives Matter, Walton’s debut is almost too cleverly packaged to be about rock and roll: it has the market-minded strategising of pop music. And, in the early moments, I was finding things as derivative and predictable as that particular musical genre can so often be. 

But, fortunately, things do start to pick up as Walton adds her own riffs to the oral history formula laid down by Taylor Jenkins Reid, ultimately offering a more nuanced investigation of music stardom and the inescapable presence of white privilege and racism. 

‘The Final Revival of Opal & Nev’ tells the story of an unlikely rock and roll duo: a flame-haired British songwriter and a fiercely independent young black woman and how their careers and lives became enmeshed and defined by the race relations of both the 1970s and again thirty years later in 2016. Our ‘editor’ for this story is the first Black woman to run the ‘Aural’ music magazine, S.Sunny Shelton, whose interest in the duo is much deeper than just cultural appreciation: her father was a studio drummer who died in tragic circumstances following an affair with Opal Jewell. As Shelton’s professional mission to document Opal & Nev’s career becomes entangled with her personal desire to learn more about her father, who died before she was born, she begins to discover dark secrets and buried truths that threaten to implode all of their lives.

Though it take a little while to get going, and though I had to cringe through some of the early moments recounting Nev’s childhood in England, once unlikely duo ‘Opal & Nev’ are established and heading for their relative, short-lived fame, the book slowly reveals its true intentions and becomes something all the more intriguing and impactful and, well, fun.

Unlike in ‘Daisy Jones’, the musical and lyrical genius of its talented, troubled stars is not the headline act here. In fact, the fictionalised musical output of ‘Opal & Nev’ is largely background noise; Walton instead frames her musical memoir around systemic racism, performative allyship and the importance of legacy. 

The book centres around two significant moments: one, the ill-fated 1972 gig that descended into a tragic riot, and the duo’s long-awaited reunion performance at a major festival. In the chapters detailing these defining events, Walton’s writing really shines, full of a tension that thrums and builds to two magnificent crescendos, both of which have a lot to say about race in America. 

Like all good concerts, I really wanted an encore at the end, one that more definitively concluded proceedings, but nevertheless this was an immersive read that I have no doubt is going to be topping the charts upon its release. With vivid characterisation- particularly of the badass Opal- and timely resonance, this book heralds Dawnie Walton as a rising literary star.

Thanks to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for this ARC read.

This is a very quiet book. It’s not one that I think many people will gush and rave about, but it is one that is so rich and meaningful that there really isn’t anyway to not love it. 

From the first page I knew I was going to love this. The characters were ones that spoke to me immediately. Opal and Nev both had my heart from the beginning. I don’t know what it is about sad little kids but I can’t help but tear up when I read about them, and that is just what these two are at the beginning of this book.  

The struggle of being a Black woman is a very central theme to the story. How much harder they have to work to be successful, how quick people are to tear them down.  Opal and Sunny were characters that I was constantly rooting for throughout the novel. I think Opal was such a strong lead and even inspired me to continue to work towards my biggest goals even when there are people constantly trying to shut them down.  I loved her personality, I love how she was unapologetically herself. 

Performative activism and allyship aren’t topics that are discussed but are very relevant to the plot of the story. We see how even our main characters get manipulated by this activism and are blinded by the harm that it has done to not only them but the people around them. 

This is just a book that has me wanting to continue to be a better ally and has made me more aware of the countless obstacles that black people have to overcome to even get recognition for what they have accomplished.

Such a powerful and important story and one that is going to stick with me for a long time.

For fans of DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, here comes a novel told through interview transcripts and editor’s notes about Opal & Nev, two totally opposite singers trying to make their place worth in the world of rock n’ roll music of the seventies. 

I have to say I am a big fan of this debut novel. The plot, the writing, the characters and the themes explored were all very impressive and well done, and so much so, that I have a hard time coming to terms with the very fact that it is a debut. It seems to me like Walton has been writing her whole life while being fully successful at it. 

First of all, the plot. As said in the title, the book replays the events preceding the final revival of the duo of rock singers. We follow the very beginning of both Opal and Nev separately, up to the present time where the story actually takes place. That is one thing that fascinated me ; how amazing it was to go through each characters entire lifetime for a long period of time-in both chronology of the story but also in real number of pages. To be able to experienced them growing up and  learning from their mistakes was so well-thought because through that whole view of the characters’ experiences in life they became more relatable and exponentially more human. 

Talking about the characters, there was so much of them! A whole big cast of diversified people, all very different from each other, but still coming together around one thing, which is music. I loved to hate some of them. I enjoyed rooting for others. I was saddened by the torture some of them went through. Each of them was important to the story, no characters were superficial, and I am grateful for that. 
I might say that the character of Sunny, the actual editor of the fictional biography, felt off to me. She was my least favorite of them all, adding her thoughts and feelings into the bowl when it was sometimes unnecessary, at least for me. It felt like she broke the pacing of the plot when she cut in to add her own grain of salt. I still think her point was adding and crucial to the overall picture, but somehow is felt rushed and brusque for me sometimes...

Finally, the themes that were explored is what made the book so unique to me. It defended people of color’s right, the importance of following your dreams and to live them by your own term and conditions and the ups and downs of being a celebrity. It is ugly. It is raw. It is honest. It is provocative. It is Opal Jewel in all her glory. What this book has to say is loud and you definitely need to hear it.

So good. What else to write? This book, organized via short snippets from a rotating cast of character tells a story that starts in the late 1960s and buttresses up to present time. It’s the fictional account of Afro-part in before it was coined as such, and begs the question of ownership, and art? Who gets to own a genre and how does commercial success limit and expand our artistic abilities? Again, so good.