Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of Malibu Rising, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and four more novels. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their daughter, and their dog. You can find her online at taylorjenkinsreid.com. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. Her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend, Camila, finds out she's pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting novel, written as if it were the oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. In Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid brilliantly captures an unforgettable place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
I admit to not loving Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and it seems to me like there'a real chance of people loving this one and hating the other, or vice versa. I really did love Daisy Jones & The Six. What drew me in was the experimental storytelling style. Daisy Jones & The Six was written as a series of fictional interview transcripts. An unknown author is moderating and deliberately placing statements and explanations, but the story itself is entirely narrated by the members of the band and those at the peripherals, like Billy's wife and the band's manager. It took a second to adjust to this (I'd truly never read anything like it), but once I was engaged with it, I found this really hard to put down. I can't imagine how amazing it must have been for audio book readers.
I really engaged with the way the story was told, and then with the story itself. This was a really quick read—I read it in more or less one sitting—and that's partly because I felt like it was because I was watching a documentary play out in front of me. The other part of this, though, is the way there's so much suspense and tension surrounding that mystery of why the band broke up. As each of the members start to reveal their frustrations and what they're hiding from one another, I held my breath as it was all coming to a head. But, as we got closer and closer to that moment, I noticed the role that memory has to play in this story. Each of these characters is relaying the story as they have been telling it to themselves for the past 40 years, and I think it's fascinating how there are some moments of intense lucidity, where things absolutely happened one way, contrasted by moments of confusion, where there are multiple tellings of the same thing. I am fascinated with how that played a role in this, and I almost wished it was played up more, especially at the ending. Regardless, I love the sly commentary on how we can't really believe the retelling because of the fragility of the human mind, and just the commentary on the powerlessness of humanity in the face of time.
What confused me by the end of the story were several things. One: why would Camila point her husband in Daisy's direction after her passing? After hearing her final words to Daisy, I found it upsetting that we never got her full rationale on why she'd want Billy to seek solace in Daisy's arms. While one could rationalize, it's hard to feel like that guess is right when Camila's last words to Daisy are still ringing in our ears. Two: what did Daisy do with her life? She went to rehab, and she started some type of foundation, but I felt that Daisy's ending was very vague and quite unsatisfying. We get incredibly invested in her character, in what she is capable of doing, and I just don't think Reid does the reader justice with Daisy's ending. On the other side of the coin, I don't see how Daisy in the present is worthy of Billy after Camila's passing, because I don't know who Daisy is anymore, and I'm even less certain that Camila knows who Daisy is now. Third and final: the story itself built up a huge amount of tension and suspense around that last show—but I felt like nothing happened and the build-up fizzled out. Everything came to a head, and it all fell down around the characters in a way that wasn't as explosive or intense as I'd hoped, which was rather disappointing. I hope that, in the TV series, they play up on this a little bit more, and make that crashing out moment more intense and explosive.
I'm pumped for the TV series and to see how they adapt and change certain things. I'm already super interested in how they changed some of thee song lyrics, and so I can't wait to see what's on screen. I may or may not do an adaptation review, so stay tuned! You can find her online at taylorjenkinsreid.com. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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