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Welcome to confession time darling readers.  When I first heard about today’s title, I was not interested.  Like, I’d not read the author, had only heard of one of her titles and the plot was unappealing to me.  Y’all, I was wrong.  The author might be a genius, the plot is intriguing, but the structure and the writing, those are the stars of the show in Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (pun intended).

Yes, Daisy Jones & The Six is the story of a fictional rock band in the 1970s, from how they started to gather into a band in the late 60s through their rise to the top of the charts, to what broke them apart, and where they are now (well, or rather in the 2010s).  See, that’s meh.  I know, but, it’s told in the style of an interview with all the band members and a few others who were around them at the time.  The story forms gradually as the band gets together and the plot thickens as the timeline moves forward with the characters.  If this doesn’t sound like a plot-driven novel, that’s because it’s not.  Truly, the characters are what drive the novel forward as they each tell their portion of the story, as they remember it, 40ish years later in portions that range from a few words to a few pages, depending on the specific situation at hand.  

As one expects of a novel about a rock band in the 70s, Daisy Jones & The Six is about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, but it’s also about love, family, and heartache, and it’s about escaping, healing, and finding yourself.  It’s also about determination, the choices we make, what it means to put your faith in others, and it’s about art and all the work that goes into a fantastic album.  Reid takes it a step further, and includes the lyrics written during sessions depicted in the back of the book and they are stellar!  THIS and how Reid tells the story through the interviews with fantastic dialogue (yes, it’s all dialogue), is what makes Daisy Jones & The Six a five-star book for me.  I’m planning to watch the show when I have a bit more distance because listening to the album has already made me grumpy (due to lack of consistency with the text).  I’m likely to be thinking on this title for a while yet, I think I’ll reread it eventually, and I definitely will be digging into Reid’s backlist at some point, but that may take a while since I’m so late to the game of her awesomeness.

What’s a title you were not interested in, got convinced to read, and loved?

~Nikki 

Taylor Jenkins Reid was born in Massachusetts, majored in media studies at Emerson College in Boston, moved to Los Angeles after college to begin working in the film industry, married screenwriter Alex Jenkins Reid, and got her first book published in 2013. She’s the author of eight novels including the bestselling and critically acclaimed titles: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, today’s title Daisy Jones & The Six, Malibu Rising, and her newest release Carrie Soto is Back!  She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. Daisy Jones & The Six was a Reese’s Bookclub Pick in 2019 and Reese Witherspoon’s production company HelloSunshine is behind the Amazon series starring Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne and Riley Keough as the enigmatic Daisy Jones. The audiobook was named one of Apple’s Best Audiobooks of 2019 and I’m tempted to enjoy it after I watch the show.

I’m listening to the soundtrack that Nikki was slightly disappointed in as I type up this review and I’m not too disappointed at the style and production, but I am also not listening to the lyrics with a copy of the book in front of me. The music style is very much reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac and Blondie. It’s important to note that Fleetwood Mac, with its turbulent personalities and numerous love affairs, is not the only band that inspired Reid for Daisy Jones & The Six. The mysterious 2012 tour cancellation and 2014 breakup of Americana duo The Civil Wars is also cited as being a source. I am a huge of fan of both Fleetwood Mac – having seen them twice in concert – and The Civil Wars (I owned both albums on CD) so the story line was in my sweet spot from the beginning. Nikki mentions many of the other themes of the book as well as the fantastic structure of being written like an oral history/ music documentary – a la VH1’s Behind the Music Series. But, my favorite story line was Karen’s (the only cool Karen) and the decisions she made for herself, knowing what she wanted more than anything was a music career.

Daisy Jones & The Six, even though I read it in the dead tree version, is a five star review title for me and I’m going to try to pick up Reid’s other titles as soon as the TBR allows. In reading this Mental Floss article that gives some more facts about the book and the TV show, we’re informed that there are 21 voice performers narrating the audio book including Jennifer Beals Benjamin Bratt, Pablo Schrieber, and Judy Greer. I’m definitely going to enjoy the audio book during some summer driving in the near future.

So glad I finally read this book!

~Ashley

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