Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
When I talk about this book being a five-star read, know that I’m specifically talking about the audiobook. I haven’t checked out the written version, so I don’t know how it’s formatted, but I don’t think it would still be a five star read. The narrators did such a great job on this book that I can’t imagine wanting to read it any other way.
This was the first audiobook I listened to that I actually thoroughly enjoyed. The acting is incredible and we all know I love a full cast audiobook. I touched on this a little in my review: “They [the actors] gave an incredible performance that was emotive and wholly believable. At many points during my listen I questioned whether this was a true story or not. Turns out it isn’t but you could have fooled me.”
It’s not a Taylor Jenkins Reid book unless I constantly question whether the characters are real and this story actually happened. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes her books feel this way, but I felt the same about Malibu Rising, which I read in a written format. Just pure magic.
Audiobook Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Synopsis: 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.
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pick this up purely because of the adaptation. I wanted to read it before the film was released and I’m glad I did because I love both. I read this book at a very pivotal time of my life so it will always be special to me.
My love for Henry and Alex has no bounds. If a book couple doesn’t have you smiling and kicking your feet with joy, it’s not a good book. “The chemistry between Alex and Henry was insane and I found myself smiling like an absolute idiot whenever they were making digs at each other. I see a lot of myself in Alex and I found him quite relatable at times. Well other than being the son of the American president. But his loudness and humor is very much similar to mine.” – turns out this was most likely ADHD, which I didn’t realise I had at the time.
I loved this book so much that I thought I’d enjoy Casey McQuiston’s other books, but no. Of the two I’ve read, one was five stars and the other a DNF.
Book Review: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Synopsis: What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colours shine through?
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