Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Realistic Fiction. Historical Fiction. 70s Rock. Interview. Drugs. Addiction. Music. 

Rating: 5/5

Started: 9 March 2022

Finished: 10 March 2022

Summary:

   The Six were a rock band with potential and talent. Daisy Jones was an absurdly beautiful girl with a natural talent for singing and songwriting but a penchant for drugs and mindless sex. Together, they created something incredible. But it's impossible to make art without getting emotions involved. 

    As members of the band Daisy Jones and the Six reflect back on their lives in the 70s though interviews compiled into a book, it becomes clear that while they remembered their lives back then a little bit differently, the music they made was magic

Thoughts:

    Holy shit. I started this book with complete confidence that Reid was going to pull off the weird format, which is unusual, but was absolutely well deserved. It was a weird format. It was a bunch of people telling the story, through interviews, so it was both more complete than a one-person narration, since it got more people's thoughts, but also more bare-bones, because there was no objective description of actions. And yet it worked perfectly. With no knowledge of who the interviewer was, which meant no context, I was immediately engrossed and attached, and not at all confused. The story is so deftly, so competently. I am unsurprised, but so very impressed. 

    I loved this book, but I didn't think it was quite as good as Evelyn Hugo, maybe because I felt less of a connection to the characters. By getting everyone's perspective, it made it impossible for me to side fully with one character. Also, the characters were more destructive--and self-destructive--in Daisy Jones compared to the usually intentional, if bad, acts and choices in Evelyn Hugo. Daisy wasn't as centered, since her story was about the band, and contained all the perspectives of the band, and that made everyone sympathetic enough to cause a bit of a dilemma of loyalty for me. In addition, after finishing Evelyn Hugo, I felt . . . held. I felt like I had just gotten the advice of a trusted older person, and it made me feel comforted. Daisy Jones is the opposite. I feel a little upset, a little lost. I'm okay with it--I think any book that makes you feel an emotion is worth reading. I mean, I put myself through All The Young Dudes twice. But despite Daisy Jones ending more or less happily, I still felt more pain than joy over it.

    The destruction and addiction in the book were hard for me to watch. Daisy drinking and doping herself into oblivion constantly, and all of the awful choices she made because of it, were awful. I just wanted her to be okay and happy and make her art, and that wasn't really something she was capable of, at least not in the span of time that the book covered. Billy and Camila though. They absolutely killed me. They were so perfect. The fact that it was possible for Billy to go to rehab, get clean, commit to his wife and kid, and then stay utterly in love with her and make sure his mistakes weren't too bad to come back from, was incredible. Their relationship made me so happy. Camila on her own, though, was amazing too. She was so strong, and such a good person. Her going with Karen when she was getting an abortion was incredible, and so was her helping Daisy realize she needed to leave the band, even though it was sad. She honestly might have been my favorite character. 

    Maybe it's just because we're reading The Great Gatsby in English right now, but I felt that there were a lot of interesting parallels between Gatsby and Daisy Jones. First, there's the character similarities between Daisy Fey from Gatsby and Daisy Jones. Both are described as beautiful and extremely compelling, even to distraction. But in terms of situation, Daisy Jones is a lot like Gatsby: she started with nothing, but wanted something, so she made it for herself, but made a lot of mistakes along the way, and ultimately sacrificed her career (her equivalent of Gatsby's wealth) in order to bring happiness to Billy, in the same way that Gatsby took the fall for Daisy's vehicular homicide. The air of reckless partying and inebriation also felt very reminiscent of the 20s. In addition, the importance of each person's perspective coloring the way in which they describe what happened in Daisy Jones is an equally important theme in Gatsby. 

    I am upset that Taylor Jenkins Reid doesn't have more books out, because while I would pay a lot of money to read another one of her books, I don't think I can re-read or own any of her books which I have read so far, at least not until I've forgotten everything about them. I think a huge part of reading Reid's books is more the surprise and expectation, and how they create such a unique experience, than the language. But I adored reading Daisy Jones, and I look forward to reading more of Reid's book in the future.