Book Review: “Daisy Jones & The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

If Once Upon A Time In Hooywood is nostalgia for the time when Hollywood was overthrown, then Daisy is nostalgia for the thing that overthrew Hollywood–Rock & Roll.

This book is one of a growing number of nostalgic, ‘what Rock & Roll was really like” stories.  (E,g., this, this, even this) 

From the point of view of an author, this topic has to be wonderful.  The real thing was as wild and fantastic as any fiction. You can put in any amount of sex and drugs and insanity you want—literally anything is plausible.  And yes, ordinary kids did form bands that blasted all the way to immortality.

Jenkens Reid works hard to portray the behind the scenes soap opera; the loyalties, jealousies, love, and hate among the band.  And, of course, the many, many bad decisions made and crazy things they all did.

The result is both sappy and gritty—pretty much the 70s if you were there.  The loves and lusts are heart breaking.  The falling outs are heart breaking.  The drug abuse is heart breaking. This is what rock and roll is made of.

As they say, you have to suffer if you want to sing the blues. 

I have to say I found it a bit of slog to get to the end.  You know it’s going to end badly. You like these kids enough that you hate watching them screw things up.  For me, the last hundred pages was really hard to read, even with the final twists at the end.

I gather that this story was made into a TV mini-series.  Honestly, I have to wonder about that.  I mean, it’s one thing to evoke the music and the scene in a novel, but how could you even begin to get the vibes right on a screen?  And no matter what you do, the music can’t possibly be as good as it is in my head reading the book.

I’ll note that Jenkins Reid followed this story with Malibu Rising, which I personally liked a lot more than Daisy Jones.  A lot more.

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1. Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six, New York, Ballantine Books.

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