Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . 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 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.
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.
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.
Cast List: Daisy Jones, read by Jennifer Beals; Billy Dunne, read by Pablo Schreiber; Graham Dunne, read by Benjamin Bratt; Eddie Loving, read by Fred Berman; Warren Rhodes, read by Ari Fliakos; Karen Karen, read by Judy Greer; Camila Dunne, read by January LaVoy; Simone Jackson, read by Robinne Lee; Narrator/Author, read by Julia Whelan; Jim Blades, read by Jonathan Davis; Rod Reyes, read by Henry Leyva; Artie Snyder, read by Oliver Wyman; Elaine Chang, read by Nancy Wu; Freddie Mendoza, read by P.J. Ochlan; Nick Harris, read by Arthur Bishop; Jonah Berg, read by Holter Graham; Greg McGuinness, read by Brendan Wayne; Pete Loving, read by Pete Larkin; Wyatt Stone, read by Alex Jenkins Reid; Hank Allen, read by Robert Petkoff; Opal Cunningham, read by Sara Arrington
I've been meaning to listen to this for awhile because I heard it was inspired by Fleetwood Mac. I love Fleetwood Mac. It's been adapted for Amazon Prime and it premieres this week so I moved it up in the library queue.
I totally see the Fleetwood Mac parallel but also I was glad it wasn't a total knockoff.
I loved the part where they said the Aurora album was about tension. And Daisy singing her song angry reminded me of "Silver Springs."
There were many dramatic and tense moments but there were also funny moments too. Like with [Spoiler (click to open)]misunderstanding of the song about the pot cookies. And when one of the band members wanted Linda Ronstadt so sing the duet with Billy.
I liked the different points of views and the revision history/unreliable narrators aspect. I especially question some of the things that happened because [Spoiler (click to open)] Billy's daughter is conducting the interviews! Are they being truthful?
There were so many quote I really liked. They were so poetic. I wish I had a hard copy to share a few.
I had read a few recommendation that said it was made for audiobooks so I got that format. Now the performances were really great. My one issue is that for the majority of the story I couldn't tell the minor characters apart. I didn't know the difference between Eddie, Pete and Warren. I finally knew Eddie from the rest when he started acting like a diva. And it took me even longer to realize he and Pete were brothers. With the PDF of the song lyrics a list of characters and their instruments would have been nice.
I'm excited to watch the Prime series and see how well it adapts. Glad it's fresh in my mind.
4 out of 5 Bangles.