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 ’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.

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.

Book Type:

Literary Fiction

Review: Daisy Jones & The Six

Deeply evocative with tension tearing at the seams, Taylor Jenkins Reid imparts an intimate glimpse into 1970s rock ‘n’ roll—the chaos and the glory, the sex and the drugs, the creative highs and disastrous lows. It’s nostalgic and intimate. The kind of raw that draws you in, the kind of characters so sharply developed they feel real with all their hard edges and hidden vulnerabilities.

What happened to (fictional) rock band Daisy Jones & The Six? What caused them to leave it all behind at the pinnacle of stardom?

Through documentary-style interviews, an author unveils what pulled seven individuals together and what ultimately tore them apart.

Brothers Billy and Graham Dunne, together with four others, achieve moderate success with their band, The Six. But it isn’t until free-spirited, red-haired Daisy Jones joins them, that they catapult to fame. It turns out her gritty, soulful voice and stirring song writing are the exact counterpoint lead singer Billy needs. Together, they make magic. And along with the magic, flares tension, temptation, and an unbidden desire.

“We were two halves. We were the same. In that way that you’re only the same with a few other people. In that way that you don’t even feel like you have to say your own thoughts because you know the other person is already thinking them. How could I be around Daisy Jones and not be mesmerized by her?”

Daisy spends her nights in a blur of drugs, while recovering addict Billy fearfully clutches to his sobriety. Daisy lives the life that forever haunts him, beckons him, while Billy fights to keep the thing she can never—and has never had—a family.

While the band’s journey largely pivots on Daisy and Billy’s explosive dynamic, bandmates and loved ones’ struggle with their own demons; their own stories brimming with depth and emotion.

On stage, it’s musical alchemy. Off stage, it’s ‘grit your teeth and bear it’ as tempers flare, lines are crossed, and the unbridled, ever-deepening toxicity of their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle threatens to overtake them.

“I came to hate that I’d put my heart and my pain into my music because it meant that I couldn’t ever leave it behind. And I had to keep singing it to him, night after night after night, and I could no longer hide how I felt or what being next to him was doing to me.

It made for a great show. But it was my life.”

I absolutely loved every minute this novel. I was utterly engrossed beginning to end. It was fresh and fascinating, taut and propulsive. Jenkins Reid was loosely inspired by the likes of Fleetwood Mac (with Stevie’s drug addiction mirroring Daisy’s) and The Civil Wars (whose own abrupt end over internal dissonance shocked fans)… and her take on it, well, it just works. I can hardly wait to see this story come to life on screen.

Immersive, intimate, evocative, nostalgic and utterly bewitching—DAISY JONES & THE SIX hits all the right notes, and with it, Taylor Jenkins Reid once again proves she can tackle any kind of story with impressive, singular prowess.

You Might Also Like: