Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: A Review

“No matter who you choose to go down the road with, you’re gonna get hurt. That’s just the nature of caring about someone. No matter who you love, they will break your heart along the way.” – Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six

Do I like 70s rock? No.

Do I really care about behind-the-band stories? No.

To be honest, I don’t even really like sex, drugs and rock’n’roll stories (and yes, I am aware of how square that sounds). So I wasn’t very confident that a novel about a 1970s stadium rock band would really be very appealing to me. But here is what surprised me:

Did I like Daisy Jones and the Six? Yes. Yes. Yes.

I read it in a day. Now granted, on this particular day I didn’t have to go to work but once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. The premise behind the novel follows two stories that eventually converge: Daisy Jones is the daughter of an artist and a model who are more interested in their work than they are in their daughter. She is stunningly beautiful, a natural talent and by her early teens, she is sneaking out to bars. She could have ended up a groupie, but her talent and desire to be a song-writer push her to take control of her own life. The Six is a rock band just starting out at the beginning of the book. They write and perform rock and dream of being the biggest band in the country. Eventually Daisy opens for them on tour, and then joins the band. At the height of their success, the band splits and no one ever knows why.

The book is written like an oral history where the band mates and others associated with Daisy and The Six are telling the story years later. Jenkins Reid’s writing style makes this a fast read but what I really like about it was how it allows for so much perspective. Each character is alone when they are being interviewed and then their stories are pieced together into more or less a chronology of the band’s rise and sudden end. Depending on which character is speaking, you get very different – and sometimes conflicting – takes on what happened. The feeling of a tell-all was so well developed that despite the fact that it clearly says, ‘a novel’ on the cover, I Googled it just to make sure that it wasn’t a real band.

Jenkin Reid includes a lot of details that will appeal to actual fans of 70s rock (like a all the lyrics of the band’s hit album Aurora at the back) but it is such a compelling story that you could know nothing about the music scene at the time and still really enjoy it. Jenkins Reid’s writing is so convincing of place and time and the story changes course in unexpected ways. The novel explores the nature of music and fame, the price of addiction and the power of relationships while still setting the story firmly in the 1970s music scene. It’s fun and smart which is a combination that I love. And while I won’t reveal the secret of why the band broke up – which Jenkins Reid makes you wait for until the very end – I will admit that I didn’t see it coming but found very satisfying.

Next week, a very different kind of mystery. Until then, happy reading!