The Final Revival Of Opal and Nev is about the rise and fall of a 70’s Afropunk duo of Opal, an unapologetically outspoken Black woman, and Nev an easygoing, artistic White man. We get to see how the duo deals with all the usual music industry problems, as well as racist problems that come from having a Black woman as a lead in a 1970’s rock band. 

I really enjoyed this book! The story was told so well through the interviews. It can be hard reading a book written in the interview format without getting confused, but I never had that problem with this book. The timeline was very clear. This book really transported me into the story. I had to keep checking to make sure this book wasn’t non-fiction because it was so detailed and authentic! It really transported me into the 70’s. The characters felt like real people. No one was perfect. Everyone made mistakes. No characters were two-dimensional. I really felt like I knew these people. And Opal was so amazing! She made this book the perfect feminist read!

Now for the things I didn’t love about this book. It took me a little while to really get invested in the story, but once I got about 30% into the book, I was hooked. In the beginning, however, I had a hard time keeping up with the side characters. It took me a while to know the difference between Bob Hize and Howie Kelly as well as other pairs of characters that seemed similar to me, but as the story went on they became very distinct. Other than those two things, I had no other problems with the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves character driven stories about the 70’s, rock music, and standing up against racist ideologies.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster/37 Ink and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: racism, hate crimes, use of the n-word