Book Review: DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid

DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books, March 2019) Hardcover, 368 pages. 

Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . .

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 ’n’ 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.

My Three-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

I have a longer history with this book compared to other novels in my collection, which explains why it took me ten days to finish it. I'm a big fan of 1970's music so the initial hype and placement on numerous best-seller lists grabbed my attention and I bought a paperback edition. I read a few chapters and could not get into the story, so I shelved it for later. I had a similar experience with the streaming mini-series. I watched one episode, wasn't fully engaged, and shelved it for later.

I have to thank The Librarian's Husband Book Cub community for making this a group read for June, which pulled me back into the story. After about 100 pages in, I was more disappointed than excited and would probably have shelved this as DNF if not for the commitment to the group. 

This was a two-star read for me until the final act of the novel, which elevated it to three stars. The ending was not what I expected, helped to make a more favorable impression of one of the main characters, and concludes with a warm, uplifting message about love and responsibility. I would suggest to anyone experiencing the same indifference as I did to stick around until the final chapters in order to receive the payoff for their time. 

Some of the things that contributed to my lack of enthusiasm while reading this:

1) The interview style of telling the story. It got old during those middle chapters. Also, this kind of felt like the author was cheating and taking a short cut. There could have been more descriptions of the scenes and era. However, the character development was still there, as the interviewer obtained some revealing information about many of them - especially the two main characters.

2) It's hard for me to enjoy a novel or get wrapped up in it when I don't empathize with any of the characters. I did not like Daisy (self-centered, selfish) or Billie (seemed phony, feigned dedication to family). However, I did appreciate one of these character more as the story evolved, the one who made the most changes/sacrifices. I did warm up to Camilia, although she was a secondary character and didn't have enough involvement in the interview reveals. You learn more about her from what others say.

3) There are some passages that just came off as too melodramatic to me. I'm not big on romance novels, which is essentially what this is.