Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book feels like a Fleetwood Mac biopic, the movie Almost Famous, and something Pamela des Barres could have written all mixed up together, narrated as an oral history comprising many voices. The story line is focused on the rise of the band The Six, the nearly simultaneous rise of singer Daisy Jones, their collaboration as a band together, and ultimately what leads to their split, which is something that has never been discussed with the public before. The “interviews” were “collected” 40 or so years after the events (so around now), but the focus is on the 70’s when the band and Daisy were a huge success.

The book is a work of complete fiction, but reads as reality, so much so that sometimes you really wonder whether The Six were a real thing and you just missed them, even though you know full well they never existed and that there are no holes in your musical knowledge of the 70’s. It’s an interesting format for fiction, and makes for an interesting, and original read. I have never had an issue with reading oral histories before (think Please Kill Me, or Meet Me In The Bathroom, for example), but I did worry at first that it wouldn’t work for fiction. I was however surprised at how easy it was to get into the narrative, and immerse myself in the voices - I couldn’t put the book down! I normally read oral histories slowly, but this combination of fiction and style and subject matter had me completely hooked.

The story itself isn’t hugely original, a lot of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, 70’s style (imagine Stevie Nicks fronting Stillwater), but the style in which it is written is. And there are a few twists and turns that make it extra special. While Daisy is obviously not Stevie Nicks (she has red hair), it does feel like she was styled on her a bit, with a bit of Pamela des Barres along the way, and who doesn’t love Stevie?!

Daisy Jones & The Six is a fun read in a pretty original format, but it isn’t the most original of stories – I rounded it up to 4 stars from 3.5 because of the fact that I couldn’t put it down.