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"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 and 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. Another band getting noticed is The Six, 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 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"--… (more)
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I enjoyed this audiobook. The voice acting by the cast was phenomenal, and it was very well produced. But, honestly, I don't think I would have liked this had I read it physically rather than listening to it in the car.
What I did like pretty much amounts to the 70's rock-n-roll
Frankly, at best, I didn't care about Daisy Jones, but for most of the story, I actively disliked her. Which would be fine if that's what Taylor Jenkins Reid was going for, but I'm pretty confident in saying that it's not. Billy was neutral at best and eye-roll inducing at worst. I liked Karen, Graham was okay, and no other characters appeared enough to have an opinion about them. Frankly, I would have been more sympathetic to the side characters' plight of Billy and Daisy thinking everything was about them if this whole book was not solely about them. This book should be titled Daisy Jones & Billy Dunne because the rest of The Six didn't matter to the story at all.
There were parts of this I genuinely did like, and parts I thought were mediocre, and frankly, I was hovering at a 3-star rating for this book until the last 10% or so. The whole ending was underwhelming. I was ready for it to be over about an hour before it was over, and it kept getting dragged on and on until it just kind of... fizzled out. So the ending is why this is getting a 2-star rating from me.
Super readable and a nice break from the more serious/harder stuff I have been reading. Really, the definition of a beach read. And given Spinal Tap, not even all that original.
This is a pretty quick read. Actually, it's a perfect beach read. It's not as good as I expected it to be considering all the hype.
I open the book and discover it is told in an interview style. Oh, ok, well, this should be an easy read, I'll finish in no time, right? Hmm, no. I found it to be rather sluggish
Jaded? Yeah, maybe.
I suppose the thing most relevant to this story are the relationships between the females, though often strained, they demonstrated the sisterhood which often unites women from different walks of life.
An ok read.
And what a ride it was.
The narrative takes a while to get used to as it’s in the
The Six were a band of well, six people, two of whom are brothers. Billy Dunne is the “leader” of the band, but not really, as the band is supposed to be a democracy. But come on…
“If the rest of the world was silver, Daisy was gold.”
Daisy Jones is an up and coming singer. She’s enigmatic and wild. And absolutely beautiful.
A producer puts them together to make a record and the Six, now Daisy Jones & The Six, go from tiny clubs to topping the charts.
Daisy Jones & The Six is an enticing read. It takes a while to sink into the dialogue-only narrative but when you get used to it, what a ball of a time you’ll have. You’ll feel like you’re hanging out with the band as they relive their best (and worst) moments.
I felt that the dialogue format could be a bit limiting in terms of creating a more complete immersion into the 70s.
And really, at the end of it all, I was wanting more. More specifically, I was disappointed because these were not songs I could actually listen to! How I wish that the Daisy Jones playlist on Spotify were actual songs from The Six and not a compilation of 70s music, much as I enjoyed the songs on it! I guess I’ll just have to wait for the miniseries!
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
2019
Ballantine Books
5.0 / 5.0
Taylor Jenkins Reid is one of the most inspiring and masterful novelists I have recently discovered.....I know Im late to the pool but, at least I´m here. Her ability to weave a place that feels inviting and familiar,
The friendships and trust, the working partnerships and collaborations were so true and essential to this story. So well done....Daisy reminds a bit of Janis Joplin in her slow beginnings, known mostly as a groupie and not taken seriously, the hard work and, sudden, yet unexpected popularity and notoriety for her vocals and songwriting, her over the edge personality and her friendly demeanor endeared her to so many. Her heartbreaking dissolve into a world of drugs and false idolization and isolation.....there are so many great characters...Simone, Daisys BFF, the Dunne Brothers, Hank......this big has fantastic feels, is a wonderful read and an author I need to read more of.
A winner!
Daisy Jones & the Six is a take on a Fleetwood Mac-like band. It is written as a series of interviews with the band members, producers, friends and others, so you get everybody's point of view to the meteoric rise and fall of a rock band.
Daisy Jones wanted to be known as a singer-songwriter, and with her gorgeous look and voice, she quickly garnered attention of men. She also used and abused drugs and alcohol and looked for love in the wrong places.
Billy Dunne started a band called The Six with his brother Graham in their Pittsburgh hometown and build a solid following, eventually signing with a record company. He fell in love with Camilla, and even through the physical separations of him on tour and with his alcoholism, they managed to marry and start a family.
When the record company had Daisy sing a song with The Six, it was lightning in a bottle. Daisy joined the band and wanted to contribute her own songs to the band, something that the controlling Billy wanted no part of. But when their album becomes a monster hit and they have a sold-out arena tour, there is no going back, through the love affairs, breakups and band fights.
Writing the book as a series of interviews works very well here, and at the end of the book you discover why it was written that way. You see the ups and downs of being in the music business from a first-hand perspective.
Jenkins Reid also includes the lyrics (that she wrote) to all of the songs from their breakout album and reading them feels like songs from the 1970s California rock scene. I wondered if someone will eventually put them to music.
We may find the answer to that- Reese Witherspoon has optioned the book to turn into a 13-part TV series on Amazon. This book is tailor-made for a TV series and I for one can't wait. If you had a worn put copy of Fleetwood Mac's album Rumours, Dais Jones & the Six is for you.
When the novel begins, Daisy is a beautiful teenage girl in LA who gets involved with rock bands and drugs in the late 60s. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll is what she loves the most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed and she gets the opportunity to sing with an up-and-coming band called THE SIX. At first when she starts to sing with them, there is lots of animosity from the lead singer, Billy. After he gets to know her better and realizes what a great addition she is to the band, he becomes nicer to her and begins to write songs with her. The album that they write, Aurora, becomes a huge hit and they become more popular than they ever dreamed of...until they all just walk away at the height of their popularity and never sing together again. This book explains the rise and disappearance of one of the greatest bands of the era and it's often difficult to remember that this is a fictional band and not a real band of the 70s.
This is an interesting look at life during the 70s. It's written in a different way and once you get used to it, it's fun to read. Warning - there is a lot of sex and lots of drugs in this book. For me, that lessened my enjoyment even though they were necessary parts of the plot.
If you want to read the book that everyone is talking about, give Daisy Jones & The Six a read...I don't think you'll regret it.
Told in the style of a
Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll! I mean, that’s what the seventies were all about, man!! Right?
Taylor Jenkins Reid has done an admirable job of creating the atmosphere and mindset of the seventies and the rock bands
From their humble incarnation to their mega-stardom, to their slide down into relative obscurity, the author takes us on a journey back to the days when the music meant everything, the bands were serious about their art, and rock and roll lifestyle either made you or it broke you.
To tell the band’s storied history, the author employs a documentary style format, which is an interesting approach. It works in some ways, but it falls flat in others. As other reviewers have pointed out, the fictional band featured in this story is a thinly veiled Fleetwood Mac prototype.
Again, this works to some extent because many people are familiar with the outrageous dramas within the band and it feels a bit familiar, and therefore plausible. But, at the same time, I did wish this fictional band had not borne such a close resemblance to an actual group. I thought it took something away from the story, as it was less imaginative than it could have been. However, this might be what made the book appealing to some readers.
That said, as the story progresses, and the band follows an all too familiar and cliched path, riddled with pitfalls, drugs, relationship woes, and all manner of inner turmoil and temptation, the story makes an ever so subtle shift into something a little more substantial than the typical ‘Behind the Music’ ‘Rockumentary’ type of story.
Although the characters’ personas are very recognizable, they are also very well constructed and unique in their own way. They do prompt emotions, but are still enigmas, in the same way the rock stars of the seventies often were, adding to, and maintaining their mystique. The downside to that gamble is that one may not feel a deep connection with them.
While those thoughts were whirling around in my head, the realization that I'd finally become invested in the welfare of the band snuck up on me. I did, finally, find myself wrapped up in the drama, and was torn by the difficult choices that the characters made, questioning some, understanding others, but ultimately making peace with the way everything came together in the end.
I will confess I was very much looking forward to this book and with all the rave reviews I was confident this one would blow me away. But, as much as I love this author and wanted to love this book, it didn't rock my world- so to speak.
Don't get me wrong, I did like the book, but it didn’t come close to packing the emotional punch of Evelyn Hugo, and I thought it had the potential to do so. However, the big reveal in this case, which was centered around the group's final performance, was anticlimactic, in my opinion.
Still, this is one many will find compulsively readable, and some will enjoy the feelings of nostalgia the story evokes. In some ways the story feels like an alternate reality for the real rock band the story is so obviously based on, which is also a thought provoking and interesting concept.
Overall, although this one didn't have the impact on me, I'd hoped, I still enjoyed it for the most part. Due to the style and format, it is a very easy read, and many will be able to finish it off in one day or even in one sitting.
A little Fleetwood Mac playing in the background will make some nice mood music to go along with the saga of Daisy Jones and the Six.
3.5 rounded up.
I finally finished reading Daisy Jones and the Six. Truth be told, I read it slow because I didn't want it to end! It was everything I expected and more. Told in an oral history question answer format, except no
This is a story that is hard to describe or at least in a way to portray my feelings around the story. Yes, it is following a band but it was so much more. It was told in a way that just ended up working in the end. It kept my interest the whole time. It was not your typical rock band story. I highly recommend it.
Overall, I loved this.
Not a deep book, but a bright, brilliant story that carries you away to another time and another place.
And it might help if you have listened to Rumours so many times over the years that it is one of the
I listened to the audio version and it needs said that if you read this book (I have no idea how this read) and did not listen to
I'm sure you've read the synopsis, that's all you need. There's no need for me to go into all that, just do yourself a favor and read it - no, listen to it. So worth it.