I don’t know why it took me two years and a book group to get around to reading Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I had read and enjoyed one of her earlier books (Maybe in Another Life), the book got lots of good press when it was released (it was even a Reese Book Club title), and I do like to read about rock and roll and the 70’s.
The book is about Daisy Jones, an unloved, rich, gorgeous, talented girl who is looking to become a great singer songwriter. As a teen, she becomes a groupie who drinks, takes drugs, and sleeps around with musicians. The Six is a band led by Billy who is a recovered alcoholic with a strong willed wife, who is also looking to become a rock and roll legend. Billy’s brother Graham is also in the band and their father left them when they were children.
When Daisy Jones joins The Six the group gets its big break. It doesn’t spoil anything in the plot to say that the relationship between Billy and Daisy is complicated (especially as her drug use escalates and he tries to stay on the wagon). Reid does a great job of showing all of the nuances of the relationships between the various band and family members.
Reid presents the story as a biographer doing interviews with the band members, their families, and people they worked with. The pace of this book is incredibly quick, I devoured it in less than a day. There is quite a bit here about family, love and friendship, the effects of fame (the rock lifestyle), and addiction. Reid is quite thorough and even includes the band’s song lyrics in the back of the book. I highly recommend this book, especially for those who lived through the rock and roll era.