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.
Flo's Review
Okay, I've poured some wine and am now ready to tackle this review. (I think Daisy would approve!) I don't even know where to start, y'all. I gave this one 4 stars because I didn't love it quite as much as I did Evelyn Hugo, but it was still such a fun ride. I scrawled some notes as I listened to this audiobook that I will now try to decipher.
First of all, I think what impressed me most about this book was that I liked it a lot...despite the characters. Let me explain. I have always been the type of reader, where if I don't like at least one of the characters, you lose me with the book. There are numerous popular books that I DNFed because I didn't like any characters, and therefore could not find anyone that I cared about, latched on to enough to keep me going.
So the characters here...I can't really think of any of them that I'd want to be friends with, or even hang out with. Well, maybe one or two. I guess let's start at the top. Daisy Jones. Ehh. She had her vices and she knows them in hindsight. I even think she might have been aware of them in real time. Friend material? No. She said something at one point about how her life was the same thing and she was sick of it and that's kind of how I felt about her. Billy. Ehh. He knew his struggle well, but his vices? I don't know if he realized them. Warren I feel like I would just roll my eyes out, but then be indifferent toward. Pete, also indifferent. I mean, you do you, bro. Good for you. No on Eddie. I feel like he'd complaining the whole time? Lol. Karen would be okay, I guess? I think I'm just ehh toward her because I love Graham. If the Six had t-shirts with individuals on them, I would buy the Graham shirt. Next to Graham, I really enjoyed Camila. I think because my personality and life outlook mesh most with hers. But my point here -- besides Camila and kind of Graham, there was no character that really grabbed me. Usually that means I don't connect so well with the book. But despite my lukewarm feelings toward most of the characters, I still really enjoyed this story. I've talked with my book club girls about how Taylor Jenkins Reid writes characters so well that you literally feel as if they are real people, like you could Google them and they'd come up in the results. I definitely felt that about all of the Six and related characters.
The audiobook...was fantastic. I am so, so happy I listened to this one on audio. The story is told as an oral history and every character had a different actor voicing them. I didn't like Daisy's voice at first, but she completely fit her. That's true with the other characters as well. Billy was sexy. Graham was comfortable, approachable, warm. Eddie was whiny. Warren thought he was the stuff. I cannot commend the actors who read these parts enough. They all did so, so well.
The format...the oral history was brilliant, because as the author says in the beginning, different people remember events in different ways. It was funny to see how they remembered them differently, but also made you understand the characters so much more. As with all people, how they saw the events unfolding around them influenced how they acted. With this format you can see how someone saw something as one thing and responded to that, meanwhile someone else saw it differently, wondered why the person responded as they did, and then responded differently. Sometimes the differences made me laugh. But they completely made me more emphathetic toward the characters. Eddie is a perfect example here. When you see it from his perspective, you completely understand what he would get so upset about. This was also completely interesting in how Billy saw his role and what he did in the band versus what everyone else saw.
The girl power...I've heard this book touted as "girl power" type story. I...guess? Here's the thing. Daisy's repeated, "I do what I want, when I want, and too bad if you don't agree" thing is supposed to be powerful, but kind of came off to me as ... self-absorbed. Yes, you do. But at the same time, realize how your actions impact others, you know? Karen...like I said, I think my view is just tainted because I Heart Graham. LOL. I did really, really like the female friendships in this though. Daisy, Karen, and Camila never spoke badly about each other. It was the complete opposite -- when they talked about each other it was with admiration and respect. They also supported each other and lifted each other up, to the end. That, I think, is the girl power I take away from the story.
[How cool is the fan club kit? And there's a Spotify playlist.]
I think I heard that this is going to be a Netflix series? I can't wait. It's going to be fantastic! I am so looking forward to hearing some of these songs.
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