Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Daisy Jones & The Six | Taylor Jenkins Reid | Review
Cover image via goodreads.com
This month I read Taylor Jenkins Reid's most recent release Daisy Jones & The Six for the third time and realised that I had never posted a review of this book, despite it being one of my absolute favourites. This time around I wanted to share not a full review, but some of my thoughts as this book certainly deserves a spot in our BB archives.
Set during the 60's & 70's the book tells the story of how Daisy Jones, a beautiful young woman with a natural talent for singing, and rock band The Six came together and rose to fame. It's an intense ride and includes all of the highs and lows experienced along the way, told through a series of interviews with members of the band as well as family members and those who worked with them during their career. The main charcters are Billy Dunne (frontman of The Six) and Daisy herself, but there are a whole host of other interesting people to be found within the pages of this book too. I'm sure I'm not alone in listing Camilla, Karen and Simone as particular favourites.
As mentioned in my review of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid has a way of making all of the characters she creates feel genuinely real. For me, one of the most effective ways she makes the story feel more realistic is by including contradictions between the different characters versions of events. One moment you'll hear something stated as a fact from one character only for another character to say the complete opposite just seconds later. You're left never really knowing exactly what happened and these moments are some of my favourites from the book.
One of the most unique things about Daisy Jones & The Six is the interview format. In a recent review over at This Splendid Shambles Anjali mentioned that for her the format of the book took away some of the emotion and therefore her connection to the characters. Whilst I would personally pick up a title in this format ordinarily, I can fully appreciate that it isn't for everyone. I have read Daisy Jones both as an ebook and as an audiobook and would suggest that listening to the audiobook would likely make the story more enjoyable for you if the interview format doesn't sound like your thing. With it's full cast of characters who bring extra personality to the story, to me it feels just like listening to a captivating podcast series about a real band and it's definitely my favourite way to read this book; I could happily listen to it over and over!
