Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Review

I have heard so many people raving about this book, so when I saw it in a charity shop on a recent trip to Holmfirth for just £1.50 I snatched it up. Then I had a conversation with the woman in the baker's who said she had loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and that I should read that! I'm on it - I have reserved it at the library after a bit of a kerfuffle. 

Anyway I picked this up in mid November. People on Instragram raved about it, but a couple said that they had found the structure weird to get into. It's not told in typical narrative structure. Instead it's told in oral excerpts, in interviews with Daisy and the six members of the Six. It's a brilliant way to tell a novel, and even though I found it quite difficult to get into, once I had then I definitely liked it. It's interesting because you get different people's points of view straight away, and you get differing versions of what happened. That's always true in life - people have different versions of the truth, especially when recollecting events that happened years and years ago. I liked picking up on the inconsistencies between what people said.

So Daisy Jones is from LA, child to two parents who don't really care about her. She is a singer and has a friend who is also a singer, Simone. As she gets older Daisy gets a recording contract, but she's stuck doing covers. It's the early 70s and Daisy is fashionable and cool. She wants to sing her own songs, though. She is also a drug addict. She undeniably has talent, but as the book goes on she is losing it due to her addictions. 

The Six are a band headed by brothers Billy and Graham. I'm writing this a few weeks later and I can't remember the names of the rest of the band, sorry, but there's Karen who plays keyboards and two more brothers, one of whom is called Eddie. He gets more and more displeased with the band as the years pass. He and Billy often fight with each other. Billy has a girlfriend, Camila, who he later marries. As The Six start their first tour Camila is pregnant, and with that pressure, Billy goes a bit off the rails. 

Daisy and the band get put together by their label, and while Billy doesn't want her anywhere near his band, even he can't deny that together they make brilliant music. Their fame escalates, and Daisy joins the band. They have one brilliant album and then split up - but why? Here is why. Daisy and Billy are drawn together, even while they desperately try not to be. 

I enjoyed the book - I'm a big music fan so I love stories like this full of drama and intrigue. I know that the book was inspired by the interpersonal lives of Fleetwood Mac, and I think that shows. I am giving this four out of five.