Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll – Daisy Jones and The Six has it all.
Daisy Jones & The Six is a series of interviews with band members and associates of one of the biggest rock ‘n’ roll bands of the 70s.
Only… they didn’t actually exist.
But Taylor Jenkins Reid has truly brought a band to life with her words. In fact, a few chapters in I was googling songs convinced that they were real.
Reid will transport you into 1970s LA – bright lights, big city – with an up and coming band with huge dreams.
It follows the band The Six, fronted by Billy Dunne – a good-looking guy forever seen wearing double denim.
Then there’s Daisy Jones – who as soon as she was described reminded me of Stevie Nicks. Daisy is an effortlessly drop dead gorgeous and can write some beautiful lyrics – but never spent a day sober. She joins The Six for a single, and ends up in the band.
The book follows the bands rise and fall, as well as documenting drug addiction, relationships and tours.
The whole book is written as an interview, the stories being told in parallel to each other. It’s read as though you are the interviewer – which as a journalist, I really admire. It’s like one huge conversation and you can imagine the bandmates and their partners sitting in big chesterfield armchairs retelling the tales of their wild youth. I instantly thought ‘I’d love to see a film about this’, so was thrilled to hear that Amazon has commissioned a 13-part series based on the book.
It’s written conversationally, with all the erms and buts left in – which makes me keen to get my hands on the audio book. Naturally, some members of the band remember some details differently – making you question the whole truth.
Daisy Jones and The Six delves into the personality and thoughts of each individual character, making them wholeheartedly human – so much so you could pick them out of a line up. Even characters only mentioned once or twice get their own backstory.
Billy and Daisy’s love hate relationship is electric – and ultimately something that drove the band apart in the end. Daisy’s feminist attitude is incredibly powerful considering the decade, with a fierce and stony exterior masking her emotional side.
I loved that Reid also took the time to write the full lyrics to the songs mentioned in the book, and included them in the back of the book. I can’t wait to hear them sung in the TV adaptation.
This book is truly one of the best I’ve read, with so much depth and realness to it. The ending is splendid, and I can’t wait for the series to be released.
Buy Daisy Jones and The Six here:
Here are some other book reviews you may enjoy:
- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
- The French Girl by Lexie Elliott
- The Heatwave by Kate Riordan
- Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- The only way you should read Normal People by Sally Rooney
