Daisy Jones and The Six Book by Taylor-Jenkins Reid Review

I adored The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and I’ve had several of Taylor Jenkins-Reid’s books on my TBR for the longest time. So, I truly thought I’d be just as obsessed with Daisy Jones and The Six.

The premise of this book sounded right up my street. I loved the idea of a “behind-the-scenes of the music industry” setup about a Fleetwood Mac-esque fictional band. All my friends recommend it. But, by the end, all I could think was: have I just read the same book as everybody else?

People have devoured Daisy Jones and The Six in one sitting, but it just wasn’t for me. Sure, there were things I liked. I’ll get into those later. But this reading experience left me feeling detached and emotionless, and I’ve figured out exactly why.

BLURB

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 ’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 late 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.

What I liked

Billy Dunne and Camila

Let’s give New York Times Bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid credit where it’s due: Billy Dunne, the band leader, was a good character. Billy’s journey from small town hopeful to wild fame, to his battle with drug abuse, and then to trying to be a better man for his wife and children had actual emotional weight. He wasn’t totally likeable, but he was compelling.

You could feel Billy’s guilt, his ego, his desperation to stay clean and be worthy of Camila ebbing off the page. Speaking of which, Camila was by far my favourite character in the book.

In a band full of chaos and ego, Camila Dunne was the still point. She was kind and principled, but never weak. Above all, she was a genuinely strong female character without having to shout or get nasty or threaten people. Camila’s love for Billy and her children grounded the book in something that felt real and emotional, even when the rest of it didn’t.

An honourable mention goes to Simone Jackson, but I probably loved her mostly from what I saw of her from the TV show. In the book itself, Taylor Jenkins Reid barely used her character. I think the author could’ve easily made Simone just as interesting as she was on the show.

I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fucking story.

Daisy jones, Daisy Jones & The Six

The other members fell flat and I didn’t care about them at all.

The idea of the book

Taylor Jenkins Reid clearly did her research. I found the band’s origin story, their rise to fame and the messiness of creative collaboration completely believable.

A band forms in the sixties, climbs the charts in the seventies, then falls apart at their peak. That coupled with the backstories of the band members, the tension between Daisy and Billy, the pressures of fame, addiction, and identity?

That’s exciting material. I can totally understand how, for some people, this book is five stars. But I just simply couldn’t get passed the format.

What could’ve been better

The interview style format

I know it’s supposed to feel like oral history from various viewpoints, like you’re reading about this epic rock n roll band decades after their prime in a Rolling Stone article. I get that. But the interview transcript style didn’t work for me. The entire book felt so empty and emotionally detached.

Look at The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, for example. Evelyn Hugo was being interviewed, telling the story of her past, and with the way Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote it I was enthralled. I sobbed for hours after finishing it. It was beautifully written. I felt like Evelyn Hugo was a real person interacting with actual people. With Daisy Jones and The Six, it was hard for me to forget that I was reading a book about characters and a band that didn’t actually exist.

Passion is…it’s fire. And fire is great, man. But we’re made of water. Water is how we keep living. Water is what we need to survive.

Billy Dunne, Daisy Jones & The Six

There were big things happening throughout, but I never felt or believed any of it. I was just reading a summary of the events and not a particularly compelling one, plus I got whiplash with how many times I had to read back to check who was talking.

the other band members

With the exception of Eddie, I cared about every single character when I was watching Reese Witherspoon’s amazon prime video show of Daisy Jones and the Six.

Apart from Billy and Camila, the rest of the band members just blurred together. Daisy Jones was meant to be this chaotic, magnetic, tortured artist, but I didn’t find her particularly interesting. I found her annoying, to be honest. And that’s coming from someone who LOVES (!!!) deeply flawed characters.

Daisy’s character lacked substance. We were told how ‘messed up’ she was, told how much she loved Billy, told about her exceptional talent, and we were constantly told how her drug use was getting out of hand. I think the format of the book made it impossible for the author to show us anything, and that’s why I wasn’t feeling her in the book.

I also didn’t really feel Daisy falling head over heels in love with Billy. An integral part of their falling in love was skimmed over. One page they hated each other, the next they didn’t.

Simone had so much potential, and I wish we’d seen more of her. Same with Karen Sirko and Graham Dunne. They were on the fringes of a story that could’ve gone (and tried to go) deeper. Alas, it didn’t. And, when it did, I thought it should’ve been fleshed out more as it was an important story.

Even the big conflicts (Billy vs. Daisy, Eddie feeling sidelined, the emotional climax of the band splitting) didn’t land because the format kept me at arm’s length and completely detached from the story. It’s hard to root for characters when you barely feel like you know them.

Final thoughts on Daisy Jones and The Six (spoiler-free)

Daisy Jones and The Six had all the ingredients to be something brilliant. It had a fun 70’s setting with a dramatic premise and some potentially great characters, but the execution just didn’t work for me. It was trying to be unique more than it was trying to be felt.

Almost all the characters felt flat, including Daisy, which shocked me considering I loved her in the TV show. I didn’t really care about hearing from the various viewpoints, and it grew quite tedious switching viewpoints so often.

You can’t control another person. It doesn’t matter how much you love them. You can’t love someone back to health and you can’t hate someone back to health and no matter how right you are about something, it doesn’t mean they will change their mind.

Simone Jackson, daisy jones & the six

I did enjoy the fact that you couldn’t be certain what you were reading was the truth. The group all have different recollections, the truth lying somewhere in the middle, and that made the book slightly more interesting.

I know without a doubt that if had been written in a traditional narrative style, I would’ve loved it . But as it stands? I didn’t laugh, didn’t cry, didn’t care. A whole book about sex, drugs, and rock n roll that somehow felt completely emotionless and boring because of the interview style format.

The only reason I’ll consider reading another of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books is because of how I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with my whole heart. I currently have Malibu Rising unread on my kindle, but I doubt I’ll rush to read it any time soon or TJR’s four other novels.

Even if you don’t watch the show, I recommend listening to the album. Here’s my favourite song from Daisy Jones and The Six: