Just like Daisy Jones & The Six, Opal & Nev initially present similar stories. Both are about bands in adjacent, fictional music history. Both present a hook for the story and pick at it via an oral history interview-style transcript. But similarities end there.

The music scene is different, Nev being a British acoustic act coupled with the Motown and gospel Opal. And the interviewer has a more interesting lens too, planted in the forward. We know that, for some reason, the story as the interviewer envisioned it never came to be for some reason. We know this is "as close to the truth as she was able to get." And we know that she is the daughter of a band member we don't even know about until things start going.

Though it takes a bit to do so, once it gets going, this is very addictive and consumable. I love this format for how dynamic it can be. Threads and tangents are more likely and forgivable--even encouraged!--in this format. When it lands well, you really feel like these are real-life people, meandering about the 70s, ribbing each other as they interject with anecdotes or elucidate events others have brought up.

What is really smart about this is how it uses it as a vehicle for the dark sides of the scene, as well as the overall times. Opal talks about her childhood and the context gets a footnote where it talks about a historical event in the neighborhood that expands on what Opal was talking about. Riots, race-relations, and racism inform this story, and it works in reiterating a theme, educating the reader in a historical context, and buttresses the fiction with actual events. Through much of it, Opal feels immediately more vibrant and alive and real than Nev, who feels fairly generic for a while. His voice is distinct... yet I only got a clearer picture of him later because his story feels like something I've read often in biographies.

The hook does the initial work, then, around 20% of the way in, and you know the character's relatively well, things start to really get going and that is when it becomes very hard to put down. Highly recommend this one. What is even more exciting for me is that an audiobook with a full cast of this is going to be out. I'll be picking that up for sure. The audiobook was the perfect way to consume Daisy Jones as an oral history, and I imagine that will hold true for this as well. If done right, this has the potential to be more stylish, prescient, and moving than Daisy--and I don't say that lightly; it was one of my favorite books of that year.

I received this advanced copy through Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.