Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

DAISY JONES & THE SIX
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Publication date:
Genres: Adult, Fiction, Historical
Format: Hardcover (368 pgs)
Source: Library

GOODREADS  *  AMAZON

S Y N O P S I S

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 and 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.

M Y   T H O U G H T S

Taylor Jenkins Reid has done it again. Daisy Jones & The Six just catapulted to my favorite read of 2019 and I’ll be surprised if it gets unseated.

Told in an unconventional format, the book is presented as an oral history of the rise and fall of Daisy Jones & The Six. The mystery author (who is eventually revealed - and was so perfect in the way it brought the story full-circle) gathered the input of members of The Six, Daisy Jones, their manager, friends, and others to tell the tale. There are conflicting details and the truth often depends on who is telling the story.

“We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get much more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than Daisy Jones.” 

Daisy was a hard-partying young woman who immersed herself in the L.A. music scene from a young age. Drinking, drugs, rock stars – she experienced it all. But she’s more than a pretty face and a good-time girl and she wants her songs heard. Billy was a hard-partying singer-songwriter who headed the up and coming rock band The Six. As a recovering addict, he had a lot to lose and struggled to balance his music and lifestyle with the family waiting for him at home. When his savvy manager suggested a collaboration with Daisy Jones, rock history was made, and a rock legend was born.

“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else's muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fucking story.”

I was sucked right into this captivating story from the very start. It was impossible not to draw comparisons between the fictional characters and real-life inspirations (Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, and other 70’s music icons come to mind as the story unfolds). Daisy is a character I loved and hated and pitied all while watching her collision course with disaster - because there was no doubt Daisy would crash and burn. Once Daisy joined The Six it felt like her own downward spiral slipped into high gear. Billy and Daisy’s relationship was equal parts intimate, explosive, and emotional, and the band’s dynamic shifted with every line that was crossed.

“We were two halves. We were the same. In that way that you’re only the same with a few other people. In that way that you don’t even feel like you have to say your own thoughts because you know the other person is already thinking them. How could I be around Daisy Jones and not be mesmerized be her?”

In Daisy Jones & The Six, Reid created so much more than the story of a rock band. It’s a time capsule. A snapshot of a period in time that, according to some, if you remember it you didn’t do it right. It’s a love story, it’s a character study, it’s an ode to the music and musicians of the 70’s, and it’s a mockumentary that at times had me totally convinced that The Six’s music was just a Google search away. I loved every minute of this fascinating, nostalgic, and engrossing novel.

5/5 STARS