The Chaos Agents

Baron & Eddie #1

by F. Fox North

Told in four inter-connecting narratives from the mid 50s through the early aughts, The Chaos Agents explores the impact and implosion of Saffron, a mid-century musical phenom lead by Baron Templeton & Edmund Hammond – whose breakup is the stuff of legends.

From a small British town in the 50s, to young brothers struggling with the grit of NYC in the 70s, to two camp counselors falling in love to a backdrop of 90s rock, to a secluded cabin in the early aughts where the offspring of Edmund Hammond finds himself blocked, each decade gets closer to the shocking revelations of how they’re all connected - and whether they can ever be unbound.

In The Chaos Agents, F. Fox North has written a queer, fictional Behind the Music for readers who enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six, A Visit from the Goon Squad, or even The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

Genres: Contemporary, Queer, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Historical, Adult, Fiction

486 pages, ebook

First published October 9, 2022

About the author

From their home in the Hudson Valley, F. Fox North (call them Fox) saves Girl Scout camps, writes songs, climbs trees, and has better taste in music than you do.

Don't look for them online. In fact, don't look for them at all.

Reviews

[james · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daisy Jones and The Six wants what Baron and Eddie have


There are two things I love most in life: music and books. Because what is life without music and what is life without books?

I have music playing at nearly every waking moment (I do have to turn it off for Teams-Meetings. Adult life has its ups and downs). My yearly minutes on my Spotify Wrapped always make it past the 100k mark. I sometimes listen to music to fall asleep.


Books are very different from music (daring observation but stay with me). I think it takes a lot of skill to translate a story that is so inherently about music into "mere" words on pages of a book.

The Chaos Agents is beautiful. It's emotional. It's sexy - not in the pornographic way (though maybe that too) but in way where it grabs you, flirts with you for your attention and leaves you breathless and wanting more. And. It is very, very queer.


The book follows four interconnected story lines over the course of 60 years. Baron & Eddie, Richard Charles & Zach, Cymbeline & Sid, Matthew & Naomi. And even though Baron and Eddie are our title heroes and there wouldn't be a story for the rest without them - each and every story is fully developed, masterfully crafted and beautifully written. It isn't one of those books where you're like "I wish it was xy's POV again.". Instead it is one of those books where you're excited and happy to hear the continuation of every character's story line - even if the previous character's chapter ended on a cliffhanger.


The writing is lyrical, you know that it's about music and you can feel that it's about music and like with every good song you will want to listen to each new line, to soak it in and to sit with it until the very last note.

And furthermore, as with every good song: it is best to go in blind and let yourself be swept away.

"And in another life I might find you again.
But in this life Cymbeline, I'm only a man. Let me love you until our dying days. Let me squander this world - for you. Will this do? It'll have to do ..."


Thank you to BookSirens for the copy in exchange for an honest review :)

[Cyndi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book got under my skin, son. 😭💔

Full RTC

P.S. - I bet I would have hated Eddie's solo albums.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know if it’s just because this isn’t my typical genre, but I found The Chaos Agents to be brilliant and incredible. Unlike anything I’ve read before. A band book, a queer love story, a work of fiction that feels all too real. It’s 1957, two English school boys choose music over love and make the greatest band there will ever be—Saffron. It’s 1977, two brothers finally bond over their love of music and their favorite band Saffron, messy history and all. It’s 1997, two camp councillors fall in love over songs, desire, and talent not pursued. It’s 2017, the two children of the songwriting duo behind Saffron are thrown together to write new music.

Told in alternating time frames each 20 years apart, The Chaos Agents is compellingly readable and unputdownable. It is laced with sex, alcohol, and music and an inherent queerness that is refreshing and natural. Every set of characters bring something to the table, telling separate stories that we get to connect together as each unfolds. But the main story is undoubtedly that of Baron and Edmond’s in 1977—two boys struggling through their family lives and dreaming of greater heights and forbidden things. We see them from their first meeting up until they become Saffron—all while knowing the aftermath, devastation, and legacy they will leave behind.

“…𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘐𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘴. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘌𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘺. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘬 ‘𝘯’ 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘌𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘌𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘮𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘺.”

I don’t think I am doing justice in describing how fantastic I found this book to be. The book has been compared to Daisy Jones and the Six, which I haven’t read so can’t speak on. The story has described as stand-ins for Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but I don’t really know much about the Beatles. All I can say is that this is a moving tribute to an entirely made up band that I somehow want to manifest as real.

The Chaos Agents is a knock-out band book, brilliantly written and beautifully executed. Loved it.

*I received an eARC of this book from BookSirens in exchange for an honest review.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. Queer as foock.
Rock-n-roll multiverse. Time:
Stops. Bends. Folds. Echoes.

Kathleen in Oslo and all the other AH followers--drop everything and read this book. Truly one of the most marvelous books I've read in a long, long time. The trans rep is magical. The writing is gorgeous. The evocation of passion and love of all kinds feels so true.

This book is all the stars. Literally all the stars.

[Jeffrey]

There are people out there trying really hard to ban books and if they get a chance to read The Chaos Agents by Fox North, there is zero doubt in my mind that it will jump right to the top of their list. I have never read so much sex in a book unless you count the time I found the erotic novel, The Barmaid in my father’s home office - with its yellowed pages and mentions of ‘ass globes’ and ‘fleshy mounds’. As ‘dirty’ as The Chaos Agents might be though, it isn’t smut. It’s a book about youth and love and, maybe most of all, rock and roll.

I was thrilled to get ahold an ARC copy of this one after I absolutely devoured North’s last book, Strange Creatures and I was a little ashamed that I didn’t immediately consume it. That wasn’t the book’s fault though – I’m just exhausted and depressed and trying really hard to be a good dad and a good husband and a good friend and there just hasn’t been the emotional energy to dive into a book I was ready to love. But we make time, right.

The book juggles a handful of timelines. We start in 1957 with Baron Templeton and Eddie Hammond – stand ins, I have to assume, for a young Paul McCartney and John Lennon (but what do I know) and their story casts a shadow over all the stories that come chronologically later (as The Beatles have cast a shadow over all pop music since). Some of the storylines take a little longer to build up steam than others, but each transition from timeline to timeline is fairly quick so we don’t feel bogged down early on when we’re spending time at camp with a young woman named Cymbeline in 1997 or in 2017 as Eddie Hammond’s son, already a shadow of a rock star who was maybe only famous because he had a famous father, tries to write good music, real music. These two pick up though too as the story goes along and they’re eventually as engaging as Baron and Eddie in 1957 or little Zachey and his brother Charles in 1977.

It's a strong book across multiple generations of rock and roll.

[Jennifer Torborg · Rating 5 out of 5]

ready for more!

North has an uncanny ability to bring their characters to life, and The Chaos Agents is no exception. You not only can see, hear, even *smell these characters, but you know them, truly know them like you would someone in your family. The different stories were woven together beautifully and came together seamlessly in the end. It was hard to put this book down, and I can’t wait for the release of Book 2!

[Melissa Izquierdo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gritty, unvarnished story of a rock and roll band and its impact through several generations.

There is quite a bit of sex but he never degenerates into porn. Rather, it is presented as part of with the hormones, sexual exploration and passion of teen age years.

The author does a great job of creating interesting, dynamic characters. I was happy to learn there is a forthcoming sequel.

I received an ARC and this is my honest review.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

riveting emotional read

A period piece that travels through back and forth through the timeline pulling strands of several stories together into a colorful tapestry. It is the story of love, and loss - of music, family and fate. It is raw and sexual, sweet and sentimental. Overall, a very fulfilling read.

[Casey Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thinly veiled love story to the love story of McLennon is a story to love.

Edit: Holds up well to a read up. I was able to focus more on the other timelines instead of always wanting to get back to 1957. :)

[Kirstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book really started clicking for me with the first Cymbeline chapter and I found myself more and more interested in the different love stories and the overarching love story with playing music. Great read - lots of times I couldn’t put it down.

[Lennox Rex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This here is one of them books where I’m having to do the mental equivalent of clapping my hands over my ears and shouting “la la la, I can’t hear you.” Maybe, just maybe, if I keep telling myself that my feelings aren’t actually destroyed, it’ll turn out to be true. Anyone else keep a running list of books that were ruthlessly rude to their feelings? No, just me? Okay, then.

Another book full of characters I wasn’t quite ready to say “goodbye” to, and am not likely to forget. Like, ever. Mark my words. Ages from now, I’ll be minding my own business, just plodding along, and I’ll be suddenly struck with an intense pang of sadness for Baron Templeton- as if he were an actual musician that lived, breathed, and recorded music. The whole cast of characters, and their experiences all just felt so real, it was as if I were reading biographical fiction or watching an episode of VH1’s Behind The Music.

[That feeling when you wish you had the power to move Heaven and Hell, just to make things right for fictional characters. . . . That’s how most fan fiction is born, I daresay. *insert maniacal laughter* No, I will not be doing that. Merely a fun observation.]

This is a good choice for: readers who can’t get enough star-crossed lovers, readers who enjoy multiple viewpoints, readers who like generational storylines, masochistic readers who want to be utterly destroyed by the cruelty creators heap upon their creations (speaking as one of those cruel creator types myself, ha).

In my opinion, though, The Chaos Agents was explicitly made for music lovers and Beatles fans, more than any other kind of possible reader out there. So if, like me, you fit that description, you really ought to read this. And be prepared for all the feels.

I received an ARC, and am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Trish Skywalker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to put into words how amazing this book is. It spans 60 years, eight MCs, and a common thread weaved between all four of these beautiful stories.
We follow four different pairs of MCs through time periods 20 years apart. Eddie and Baron in 1957, Zachary and Richard Charles in 1977, Cymbeline and Sid in 1997, and Matthew and Naomi in 2017. Not all of these are romantic relationships, but they all center around music.
Every story harkens back to Eddie Hammond and Baron Templeton, who we meet as two teenage boys, growing up in Liverpool, with dreams of being like their idols: Little Richard, Elvis, Buddy Holly. As much as I loved every character in this book, Baron Templeton absolutely stole my soul. On the outside, Baron is brash, broody, and too cool for it all. But inside he’s anxious, unsure, and doubtful of himself. He finds magic in creating music with Eddie, but never quite gets how stunning and talented he is.
Every once in awhile a story hits me that I need to know everything about. This is one of those stories. I found myself wishing these characters were real so I could google them endlessly. They are an amazing group of characters and I loved watching how their stories became more intertwined as the book went on. Initially I thought the stories were just related in music and the band that all of these characters loved, but then I discovered more and more layers of connection and it was fascinating.
F. Fox North did an absolutely brilliant job with this. I’m so thankful there’s another one coming, which I preordered before I even finished this one.
This book is beautiful, mysterious, emotional, and passionate. I really can’t praise it enough.

[Phoebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A queer



for fans of



Read this if you like





and staying up all night to see if those assholes



It's my first book for grown-ups. It's the best thing I've ever written.

Like all of my books it's about outsiders in need of a home, intergenerational trauma, toxic masculinity, the closet, ghosts literal and figurative - but mostly about it's whether those assholes ever











Baron wants you to know it's the best thing you'll read all year.

Buy it here, here, or here.

[Starr ❇✌❇ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC from the author
TW: historic homophobia, Oedipal complex/light incest themes, casual hate speech (historic), mentioned dog death, substance abuse, infidelity, themes of child neglect, mentioned physical abuse (father)
3.8

This was extremely out of my own regular comfort zone with reading, so this entire book was an experience I had little map for. Which is not a bad thing, at all! But it did have me occasionally gripping at the proverbial door handle and wishing I could ask locals if I was going the right way.

If you're a fan of "band" stories, I think you'll absolutely enjoy this, especially if you're a queer reader. The timeline(s) of this story is something that takes a few moments to get a handle on, but at the end you find yourself traveling a long and connected road of musical evolution all from one group of rowdy teens. Seeing the points of connection was definitely my favorite part of this book, and it's that spiraling, stretching path that kept coming back to me weeks after reading. I like a book that sticks with me, and The Chaos Agents did that and more.

I also enjoyed Eddie and Baron's dynamic and the strange way they worked together. There's a somewhat twisted, coded thing going on right from the beginning that easily leads into a complicated, suffocating connection between two people who don't always seem like they actually want to be connected, and it's fascinating to watch.

There were a few small things that made it hard for me to connect until a solid chunk into the story, like the slowness of the pacing and what sometimes seemed like repeated revelations, but really what kept this from being a book I loved are entirely personal issues.
For one, Barron's incestuous thoughts really made me consider putting the book down. Anything related to incest is a complete no for me, and I suppose I should have checked before reading, because in any other case I would have just known it wasn't going to be the book for me. I will say, however, that this part of the book is minimal, and if you don't have serious issues with it as a theme in any capacity (as I do) you most likely won't be that affected by it.

The other element, as I think others have said, is that this book is really sexual. That is, again, not a bad thing in general. But I'm an asexual reader, and the sheer amount of physicality was kind of, well, a shock. And not something I could connect to or enjoy. But that's me! Allo readers or those who enjoy more, say, descriptive content, most likely won't be bothered.

Queer fans of books like Daisy Jones & The Six and/or readers of Beatles fanfiction should pick this up!

[Susan Dinan]

This book is a remarkable exploration of creativity and the production of art and the centrality of human connections and sexuality to the making of music. It tells four stories that intertwine and all center on the recognition of (mostly) young people of their value as forces for musical creation and shares the joy and excitement of collaboration. I have never read anything quite like it.

[Keily · Rating 5 out of 5]

That shirt hurted 👍

[Alysa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complex, sweeping, and incredibly honest, THE CHAOS AGENTS, pulls you into a time and place (actually several times and many places) and grabs hold of you. I had the honor of reading this before publication and I think of the world of this book still. Fox North weaves multiple timelines and seemingly disparate stories together in a wholly surprising and incredibly satisfying way. Like the music it celebrates, it evocative, moving, and challenging in the very best of ways!

[F. North · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you know when you’ve made something remarkable?

Is it because you’ve been paid for it? Is it because someone tells you it’s good? Is it because of the way your audience shifts, sitting forward in their seats, their pupils flooding their eyes with black? Is it because you find yourself revisiting it yourself over and over again? Held captive by the story as if it didn’t come from you, as if you were channeling, as if you were merely a conduit for these people and their stories? Is it because, when you read it again - willingly - for the fifth or fifteenth or fiftieth time, you hear yourself say, Oh, yes, this was the book I’ve always needed?

I first became enamored with British mid-twentieth century music when I was eleven years old. I wasn’t then capable of writing a story like this. The notion to finally write a fab book first occurred to me in 2014, between my first two published novels, but it was so far afield from my genre - young adult science fiction - and popular tastes that I could not even begin to contemplate writing it. I set the idea aside for several other books, some which meant something to me, some which didn’t. I grew. I changed. And I began to realize that the story was much bigger than a fictionalization of two real boys navigating grief and identity in 1958. Baron and Eddie began to come to me through the ether, and with them, their children, their ghosts, their problems, their cats.

At last, in 2017, I set the first chapter to paper. I shared it with a friend. “Wow,” she said, “You must write amazing erotica. The sexual tension!” That chapter is shared here almost unchanged, save for my realization that Baron - of course! - is a diminutive guy, a pocket human.

(And I must say, writing these books has always been like that; I don’t make choices. I have realizations. The universe is already set out in perfect detail, and woe to the author who tries to change it. There is a guitar that is missing in this book by 2017. I tried to write it in. It was wrong, all wrong. I had to write an entire sequel for the characters to finally consent to sharing with me where it went.)

In 2017 I was under a deadline. I wrote here and there between other things. And, well, I didn’t know what to do with this book. It wasn’t for teenagers. It wasn’t like any other book I’d read. I got halfway through, and wrote several other books in the meantime. Sensible books. Potentially lucrative books.

But every winter something would happen to me. As the weather cooled, I’d don ‘70s concert tees and start playing The Hollies for my family. I’d play my guitar incessantly. “The winter of Baron Templeton,” my spouse would say, as the season inevitably turned to spring and I’d babbling about
the private sex lives of long-dead rock stars at dinner. In 2020, I realized I was not, for the first time, contractually bound by anything else. And I let my passions carry me. That winter, writing as though possessed, until I was pulling nine, ten hour days at the keyboard, until I gave myself a sciatica flare-up. I stayed up all night. I finished Baron’s story, and Naomi’s story, and Ed’s story, and Richard Charles’ story and Sid’s story, and poor, dear Cymbeline’s, but I still didn’t feel done. I learned to solder pick-ups and build guitars just so I could stay in the world a little longer. I mean, I built myself Baron’s Rickenbacker Combo 600, a guitar which does not exist. I thought that might satisfy. I sent the manuscript to my agent, and told myself it was over.

My agent loved it. She read it in one sitting, crying in a coffee shop, and when she was asked by a neighboring table what she was reading, she didn’t know what to say. She put it on submission and based on early interest - film and book - we felt optimistic. We waited for an offer. I told myself I
had done my work, for now.

And then the next winter, the same old mood returned. Baron, I was missing Baron. In between more sensible projects, I let myself write a short story about Baron. It became two short stories. It became a novella. It became a sequel, I reluctantly admitted to myself.

And meanwhile, the offer never came from trade publishing. My agent fielded phone calls, editors saying the book was “transcendent,” and “definitely had voice.” But they also didn’t know what to do with it. “Band books don’t sell,” “too raunchy,” “not a good fit for our list,” “I’m just not sure how to break it out.”

I’ve done this dance before with other books. I told myself I could pack them away, write something else, better targeted to the market. For whatever reason, I can’t with this book. No, that’s not true. I know the reason. The reason is Baron Templeton, borrowing my skin, my fingers, my time. Inhabiting me. Being bossy, a brat. But right.

You’re not going to put us down, now. You think I’m going to let you do all that?

No, no, Baron. Of course not.

Good.

The truth is, I can’t wait for you to read The Chaos Agents. I know it’s remarkable. I know it will change you. I had no choice but to share it with you - Baron, fucking Baron, would have it no other way.

Yours as the weather starts to cool and every winter thereafter,

Fox

[S.E. Martens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have such mixed thoughts about this book.

The Chaos Agents is the story of a fictional British rock group, Saffron, told across four different timelines and multiple POVs. It's well written and the way the different narrative strands tie together and echo each other is well done. However, I also have some significant problems with it, which I'll get into later.

The basic premise of the novel is that in the late 1950s, two British teenagers - the taciturn and moody Baron Templeton and the angelic-looking Eddie Hammond - are destined to form a hugely influential band (Saffron.)

In the late 1970s, two American teenager brothers are obsessed with Saffron and dream of starting their own rock group. They eventually track down Templeton, who is then living at the Chelsea Hotel.

In the 1990s, a camp counsellor named after one of Saffron's biggest hits - "Cymbeline" - is slowly drawn out of her shell and encouraged to pursue her own musical talents.

And finally, in 2017, Matthew, the forty-year old son of Saffron's Eddie Hammond, is trying to restart his own lackluster music career by teaming up with Naomi, the daughter of Baron Templeton.

Saffron is at least partly meant as a fictionalized version of the Beatles, with Baron Templeton as John Lennon and Eddie Hammond as Paul McCartney. It is interesting to see the points where the characters are so obviously modeled after their real-world influences and the points at which they diverge. One change North makes is that Templeton is a white-passing person of colour. This is also what Taylor Jenkins Reid did with her fictional celebrity character Evelyn Hugo. Interesting. North uses Templeton's biracial identity as a "dramatic reveal moment" more than half-ways through the novel. Which is an oddly uncomfortable choice - sort of akin to using sexuality or gender identity as a "plot twist."

Templeton eventually becomes involved in the Black Liberation movement in the United States. That tie to Black Liberation becomes the thing that leads to Templeton's tragic death. But rather than have him become the target of the FBI or the police, which would historically make more sense, North makes the incredibly bizarre choice to have Templeton be duped and betrayed by a "cult like" Black Panther leader named "Peter X." I mean - ???

Another character summarizes it as: "I think he must have gotten in over his head with those radicals. Not that he didn't believe in Black liberation. But I think he thought he was using them, to a certain extent, and maybe it was the other way around."

But WAIT, it gets weirder, because there's a subplot in the 1990s timeline, wherein we learn that Templeton was reincarnated as a white girl (Cymbeline) who sees mystical flashbacks of his life. Then we later learn that no, she just had a brain tumor that was giving her visions (and somehow sending her soul back in time I guess, because Templeton could sense her presence back in the 1950s.) Like - ??????

There are so many odd and kind of problematic choices here that detract from the genuinely magnetic characters of Templeton and Hammond. I kept wanting to just get back to the 1950s storyline and learn about their relationship and their band. However, even that doesn't get a very satisfying arc. The 1950s narrative drops off just as Saffron is finally coming together, so we don't even get any fun performance or touring moments.

I don't know.

I really enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the characters and thought that their internal conflicts and motivations were well done. I felt Templeton's angst over being queer in post-war Britain. I am impressed by the ways the four different timelines interweave - even if I didn't really enjoy all of them.

But I also feel like if an author is going to bring a topic as important as the Civil Rights Movement into a novel, they should do it a little more justice than what was portrayed here. The Black Panther Party is name dropped a couple of times, but largely glossed over and implied to be some kind of religious cult with goals of establishing a commune. Not that the Panthers never did anything violent or controversial, but they weren't Jonestown and you can't just mash those two things together and call it a day.

[Bookishdays · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was 5 stars for me!

I loved this book because overall it’s a beautiful love story. Every character has a pain in life, but the story pays a tribute to song writing and demonstrate the impact music has on one’s life.

Told in different timelines, we follow Eddie and Baron in the late 50’s, Cymbeline and Sid in late 90’s, Matthew and Naomi in 2017 and also the brothers Zach and Charles, but honestly, I didn’t care much about these two. We discovered the true nature of the Eddie and Baron relationship through these different timelines because all the characters are connected.

The book is beautifully written, and all the characters are fascinating and unforgettable.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Andrew Kozma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, intricately weaving four different storylines (and a kind of magic linking them altogether) in a way that made me think of David Mitchell. Similar to Mitchell, North gets down into the essentials of every character's life and makes you care about them and their dreams almost from the instant you meet them.

For my part, the most treasured storyline was of Cymbeline and Sid, perhaps because it captures that moment between childhood and adulthood so perfectly with the main characters as counselors at a summer camp.

It is again, beautiful writing, and well worth laying your eyes on.

[Lian Chang]

The characters in The Chaos Agents are so real, brought to life in raw language that makes you feel all the feels. The multiple storylines create a sense of a world and of interconnecting lives in a way that kept me turning the pages. There is a LOT of sex in this book, and my guess is that it won't always be the kind of sex you thought you wanted to read about. Rather, these scenes are often in service of the story, the characters, and their beautiful, sometimes really sad, lives of these superstar musicians.

A fun read that transports you to another time and place.