When craving a complete escape from the realness found in the pages of some novels, immerse yourself in Taylor Jenkin Reid’s, Daisy Jones & The Six.
For fans Fleetwood Mac or Electric Light Orchestra, the focus of this book is sure to quench your thirst for an in-depth band tale. Hopeless romantics who appreciate an unhappy ending may like it even more. The story is told with each character’s perspectives being shared in the moment rather than alternating each chapter.
The novel’s plot follows the story of a 1970’s band in LA as they navigate their ups and downs of their career. The book follows the lives of Daisy Jones, a beautiful yet emotionally broken girl, unaware of her talent and uncaring of her wellbeing. It also provides a lens into the lives of members of imaginary band The Six: primarily Billy Dunne, but also Graham Dunne, Karen Sirko, Warren Rhodes, Eddie Loving, Pete Loving, and Billy’s wife, Camilla.
What makes the book so special is how these characters are written. They are devastatingly beautiful with stories that encapsulate those you admire and wish to be, while also being everything you avoid. They are complicated and flawed, yet you empathize and relate with them despite your lack of similarities. They are the reason the plot is intoxicating.
Daisy is written to be a wickedly beautiful, wild-spirted woman who is passionate about music and whose neglectful childhood has left her searching for comfort on the streets of Hollywood. She became most familiar with getting what she wants on her looks alone without being egotistical — her complex profile renders her uninterested in her well being.
The stage was set to satisfy the ‘sad pretty girl being saved by lonely boy trope’ often adapted by John Green, but Taylor Jenkins Reid defies readers’ expectations.
The novel flourishes in themes of female empowerment, allowing for characters like Daisy, Camila, Karen, and Simone to offer commentary on women needing to demand respect and credit in a world of male privilege and priority. They dispute being the “muse” or “inspiration for some man’s great idea”, and instead made sure they were “the somebody.”
Billy Dunne, meanwhile, is aggravating and at times narcissistic, yet completely mesmerizing.
Passionate about music, he came from nothing and started a band with his brother.
Billy’s marriage to Camilla exposes how addiction can affect personal relationships—the 70’s reputation of glamorization of sex, drugs and rock and roll could not have been better told. The impact his addiction has on his family is realistic and nuanced.
So now we have two opposite leads: a girl drowning in her addiction, and a boy hardly treading on the surface. Everything handed to Daisy, and nothing to Billy. A single woman and a married man. Of course, their love becomes dangerous.
Their tragedy was sharing a love so passionate, so raw and unexplainable but knowing it could and should never be. How can one not find themselves completely immersed in their story?
Thankfully, TJR doesn’t conform to basic tropes to meet a readers “interesting romance” criterion. Instead, it’s a raw depiction of two flawed individuals, immersed in a culture of glamorized drug use as they navigate the 1970’s music industry.
Reid immerses you in the lives of these characters so well you begin to convince yourself every word is real—the band exists; the bibliographic nature of the writing is on record somewhere; the music is on Spotify; and the lives of the characters are genuine and true. Reid even wrote lyrics for every song the band makes!
You don’t have to have anything in common with these characters—you probably won’t unless you were a struggling substance user and musician in the 70s. Yet you find yourself completely enamored with their stories, empathizing, and understanding every emotion the characters share.
This book gave me a life to live outside of my own; one that reminded me why I read, why I love, and why I live—isn’t that all books are supposed to do?
Tags
bands, Fleetwood Mac, novel, Taylor Jenkins reid
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