Title: Daisy Jones & The Six
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Series: N/A
Dates Read: 30/09/2024
Published Date: 05 March 2019
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 355
Pace: Medium
Content Warnings (May contain spoilers)
Abandonment, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Grief, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Violence.
Who is this for? Young Adults, Adults.
This book covers:
- Rock and roll at its very beginning, and the trials and tribulations of being the biggest band in the world.
- Finding your way through life through all of its setbacks and staying true to who you are.
Format/Disclosure: Library, paperback.
Rating: 4.75 ⭐
Review:
Daisy Jones & The Six is told in the style of interview answers from the various members of The Six, their partners, Daisy Jones, and various friends & colleagues. It’s an exciting tale of the birth of rock and roll, and how The Six dominated the airwaves and stages during the height of the times. We learn how Daisy Jones came to also rise to fame, albeit in much different circumstances, and her combining with The Six and the eventual breakdown & breakup of the entire band.
I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, also by Taylor Jenkins Reid, earlier this year and did not enjoy it at all (Rating it around a 2-star, from memory), so although I wanted to read this (& it was also on my 24 in 2024, so felt almost obligated to read it), I was genuinely a bit apprehensive going in. However, I absolutely didn’t need to be because this book was genuinely amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed it more than many other books read both this year and for the past decade. I loved the style of interview answers and how the story slowly came to light. I loved how even though we followed quite a few characters, everyone still had a discernible voice/personality. I loved how everything flowed so well, with mentions of situations or comments irrelevant to the core story, but relevant to those characters.
One part I especially loved (and this may be spoilers to some people) was keeping true to the wants of certain characters. We see Karen fall pregnant, after mentioning earlier how she never wanted children. We see her partner be thoroughly unsupportive, and her having to take someone else to have an abortion. & at the end, during the “epilogue” of sorts, she confirms that having children wasn’t something she saw in her life and wasn’t something she wanted. As a child free woman who is constantly told how I’ll “change my mind” when I’m older, it’s so common to see a child free woman in media who realises she was wrong all along and she actually did want children, whoopsie, so silly! Seeing a woman stay true to her beliefs and not have children was just so refreshing.
In saying that, I do have some minor criticisms/parts I didn’t enjoy as much – Firstly, I felt the “reveal” towards the end felt unnecessary and almost shoehorned in. There was a second “reveal” slightly later in the book which felt a lot more natural, and I think removing the first reveal would’ve been a better choice. The awkward conversation that followed the first reveal felt forced, and also mostly unbelievable (I mean, I know my memory is bad, but a random memory when you were 4 seems unlikely). It was the first time in the book that I just suddenly felt so jarringly pulled out of the world and just a bit.. confused?
The only other very minor thing is how often I confused Graham and Warren. Which isn’t the authors fault in the slightest. I realise the names aren’t even that similar, but I just kept confusing the two, and would regularly forget who was the brother.