Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

DAISY JONES & THE SIX

(Standalone)

Taylor Jenkins Reid

BLURB

A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup.

“I devoured Daisy Jones & The Six in a day, falling head over heels for it. Daisy and the band captured my heart.”—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine book pick)

Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

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. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, 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 and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

Praise for Daisy Jones & The Six

Daisy Jones & The Six is just plain fun from cover to cover. . . . Her characters feel so vividly real, you’ll wish you could stream their albums, YouTube their concerts, and google their wildest moments to see them for yourself.”HelloGiggles

“Reid’s wit and gift for telling a perfectly paced story make this one of the most enjoyably readable books of the year.”Nylon

“Reid delivers a stunning story of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll in the 1960s and ’70s in this expertly wrought novel. Mimicking the style and substance of a tell-all celebrity memoir . . . Reid creates both story line and character gold. The book’s prose is propulsive, original, and often raw.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

★★★★

I listened to the audio version of this book after hearing Reese Witherspoon mention it in her IG stories. There are multiple narrators; one for each character. The story is told in an interview format where each character chimes in with their perspective of what was happening as the band, The Six, were forming. It starts out with two stories running parallel – Daisy Jones, and the band members of the Six – until their stories collide. This format felt like I was sitting in a recording studio listening to all of them telling me their version of how the band was made and what happened to them.

Even though this is a work of fiction a lot of people have thought the story to be real because of how it’s told. It also has the flavor of being like the real-life band. It’s been compared to Stevie Nicks & Fleetwood Mac. For me, it reminds me of The Civil Wars. A duo who one day just stopped making music together. It actually happened right in the middle of a tour. They canceled the rest of their dates and there wasn’t any explanation given to the public at the time besides, “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition.” The singing duo – Joy Williams & John Paul White – were both married to other people even though most people assumed they were married to each other. They were musical soulmates or so it seemed in their music videos and concerts.

The characters of Daisy (who was added to the band) and Billy (who was the leader of the band) had that too; on stage and on their albums they seemed to be musical counterparts. The sexual tension was felt in their words. Even if there was an attraction between Billy and Daisy he wasn’t a free agent, he was married to Camila. Camila was a strong supportive wife and partner to Billy and his dreams. Actually, she’s, kind of, like the motherly figure for the whole band.

I envision Billy and Daisy performing The Civil Wars song: Poison & Wine the same way. Especially, the ending of the song when you see them with their mouths inches from each other.

DAISY JONES & THE SIX is a standalone book. It’s my first book by this author. If you’ve ever wanted to go back and interview your favorite rock band and find out how they became who they were and how it all ended then this story is for you. And if you’re like me and you like to read a book before it’s put on the big screen … you’ll want to read this now. Reese Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, announced it’s going to take this book and turn it into an Amazon Prime TV series.

STANDALONE

Amy Signature

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Author: Foxy

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