Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital copy of this audiobook; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

To be honest, I only listened to about 1/2 of this book. I did not connect with it at all. It meandered and seemingly pointless information was provided for each of the multiple POV. At around the 40% mark, I skipped to the last 10% of the book just to see how it ended, so I did not read the whole book.

Characters fell flat, none of the protagonists were likeable, and despite the title, there's so much about this book that does not scream California. The writing was uneven and downright choppy. The whole thing was just not a pleasant experience for this reader.

I will not be featuring this review on my blog or social, but I will be posting on Storygraph and Goodreads.

This was a very unique story, I give the author a lot of credit for originality. It did not land well with me, unfortunately. I felt it was poorly detailed and there was too much vulgarity (I am not a prude either). The narration was not the best either.

Thank you to Netgalley the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a hard one to get into. I found it extremely difficult to follow, and struggled to connect with the characters. 2.5 ⭐️

2.5 * rounded up. I actually DNF and only made it to 34% before calling it quits. It warrants a 3 because the writing was very good and I was listening to the audio version, rather than reading. I think this one needs to be read in order to do it justice.
The book started out hot with the first character Tobey. If the entire book continued with him I would have absolutely finished the book. Things unravelled for me when the characters of Diane and Klaus came into play. I didn't feel connected to them or curious about what would happen next. I just wanted the book to go back to Tobey and when it didn't, I couldn't motivate myself to continue.
A sidebar that I did not include on Goodreads is that the title the "Californians" made me think I would be getting "Cali vibes". I am a sucker for books that evoke all things California, good or bad. It started out on point with the wildfires and the flakey girlfriend but the other two characters did not feel very California. Perhaps a different title would attract a different audience.
I would like to thank Harperaudio for providing this book for review via Net Galley . All opinions are my own.

This tale weaves in and out of different time periods and we get a flashback to an earlier time in one of the characters life. This is an epic tale that feels a little overwhelming at times and meanders a bit at times. New to me author and I will be interested in checking out future books by him.