Synopsis: 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.
Review: I'm not going to go out of my way to read anymore Taylor Jenkins Reid books. Her books just make me angry. Daisy Jones and the Six follows the story of a band as they come together and, eventually, fall apart. Understanding this basic summary, I was confused as to where Daisy Jones fit into the narrative. She isn't considered "part of the band" until halfway through the book and that threw me off. I also wasn't sure how I should imagine her voice. Some people made it sound like she wasn't the best singer ever, but her stage presence is what really sold her music. Others made it sound like she was God's gift to music. I wasn't sure which opinion I should listen to. She was also insufferable. She had this, "No one can tell me what to do because I'm an independent woman" attitude, but she was completely dependent on drugs. I don't care of people do drugs. Everyone has their vices. But you can't reasonably act like are your own person when you rely on coke to get you through the day. I liked seeing Billy's story because I know what it's like to be in recovery for your self-destructive tendencies. Watching him grow was honestly what carried me through this story.
The big drive with Taylor Jenkins Reid's books is that they're extremely fast to get through. Daisy Jones and the Six is definitely an example of that as it's told in interview format. While it was fast to read, I was often frustrated at the format because none of the characters felt distinct. All of the male characters sounded the same and I often had to glance up and see who is supposedly talking to the interviewer. I didn't know how the interviews were set up either. Was the band all together hashing stuff out? Were the interviews done one at a time? What specific questions were being asked/answered? I grew up reading The Rolling Stones and AP, so I know how music interviews are supposed to be. This didn't feel like those. More than anything, it felt like TJR just wanted to write The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo again, but throw music into the story instead of films. I liked the discussion about making a record and stripping down songs. But that was about the only story element I really enjoyed. I probably would have enjoyed this more if it was structured like a traditional novel instead of these weird interview segments. Daisy Jones and the Six did a lot of telling, and no showing. That's the point of the interview style. It just made me not care. I didn't really care about Daisy. I didn't care about the band. The only person I sort of cared about was Billy and, again, that's because I related to him.
Daisy Jones and the Six was a mediocre book that annoyed me more than it entertained me. Clearly I am not the audience for TJR books.
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