Rock-and-Roll Reality Check
Comparing this to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was inevitable for me, and while I truly enjoyed the ride, this one landed at a solid 3.5 stars. I suspect that if I had tackled this as a physical read, the choppy writing style and constant perspective-shifting would have been a struggle. However, the audiobook is incredibly robust with its full-cast narration, which is easily the superior way to experience this story. It’s one of those rare instances where the format actually saves the pacing, though I still found myself wishing for a bit more momentum throughout.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has a remarkable gift for crafting characters that feel startlingly human, which is likely why her work translates so well to the screen. That said, the cast list here felt a bit bloated. I’m still scratching my head over what Warren, Eddie, and Pete actually contributed to the narrative arc. I absolutely love musical memoirs—I even read Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller last year—so I think I was holding this fictional band to a very high standard, and the pacing here felt a little sluggish in comparison to a real life story.
I also have to share a bit of “hard truth” time: I felt like a total sucker because I genuinely thought Daisy Jones & The Six was a real band. The author’s note is written so convincingly—claiming to piece together the portrait of a “renowned” 70s group—that I felt like it was liar-liar-pants-on-fire territory when I realized it was all fiction. I felt like I could rely on that note as historical fact, only to realize I’d been played! It is an interesting read in a very unique format that constantly brings Fleetwood Mac to mind, and while I liked the experience, I didn’t quite reach that level of all-out love.
