Initial Thoughts:
I don’t actually remember why I picked up and listened to this audiobook, but with a full dramatic cast that includes Benjamin Bratt and Judy Greer, it was bound to be a ride. And what an enjoyable ride it was!
I’m only sorry this band actually doesn’t exist, because I’m super curious how their songs really did play out. Other than that, it was a trip into the ’70s through the eyes of the band members, a smattering of other characters, and the wonderfully larger-than-life Daisy Jones.
DAISY JONES AND THE SIX
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Ballantine Books, March 2019
Historical fiction, audiobook
Rated: 4 / 5 cookies
Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six: The band’s album Aurora came to define the rock ‘n’ roll era of the late seventies, and an entire generation of girls wanted to grow up to be Daisy. But no one knows the reason behind the group’s split on the night of their final concert at Chicago Stadium on July 12, 1979 . . . until now.
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 ‘n’ 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.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band 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 that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
Okay, I’m going to be honest–and don’t laugh–but I totally thought this band existed until about halfway through the audiobook and I’m searching up songs to find that NONE OF THEM ACTUALLY EXISTED.
I said, don’t laugh!
It goes to show how much of rock n’ roll I actually know. Such is my experience with Daisy Jones and The Six.
When I saw this as an available audiobook at my library, I jumped to reserve it for future listening. I had no expectations going into Daisy Jones and the Six, and honestly, I knew nothing about it other than the band had split up, and what the heck was Benjamin Bratt, Judy Greer, and Jessica Biel doing in an audiobook at the same time?!
So yeah, I listened to it, and within the first hour of the audiobook, I was already invested in the story. I wanted to know more about this dynamic band with the various characters who came alive on the page. It did help that the actors gave their characters distinct voices. Between all the band members and Daisy, you really got a sense of how the group got together and why, even at their height of play, they eventually break apart.
But what I really loved about this is the fact that the women had just as much of a voice as the men in the band. Billy and Warren were fantastic characters to get into–with their vices and their drama–but I really loved Karen, Camila, and Daisy as well. The three women prominently feature an outlook on life–as well as a modicum of success–that you would not expect from women living around this time period. Karen is the keyboardist who doesn’t want to settle for anything less than her independence. Camila is the down-to-earth support who manages to build a family despite the tumult throughout her marriage life. And Daisy? Daisy is someone all the girls want to be, but behind her beautiful, talented veneer is a woman who’s constantly drowning in drugs and alcohol to shut out insecurities.
So many of the characters are sent into a whirlwind life of sex, drugs, and alcohol (because honestly, all of that seem to go hand in hand with rock n’ roll in the ’70s and ’80s), but many of them also come out stronger by the end.
Story of a rock band’s life, right?
The book did make me wonder what it was like to be in a ’70s rock band. This isn’t normally something I would want to research, to be honest. I’m more of a pop princess ’90s ballad girl, so rock in the ’70s is definitely not up my alley.
All the same, Daisy Jones and the Six was definitely a riveting read. I’d recommend it as an audiobook hands down because of the different actors who voiced the characters. It really helped to bring them to life. I’m only sorry this band really didn’t exist; I wanted to listen to most of the songs Billy and Daisy wrote and performed, especially “Honeycomb.”
4 out of 5 cookies!
Story and Somnomancy 