Daisy Jones and The Six

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

[pamela]

While I enjoyed the way Taylor Jenkins Reid writes, and appreciated the interesting format, and depth of characters, Daisy Jones & The Six just didn't blow me away as much as I'd hoped it would. While the format went a long way to highlight performative memory bias, and the nature of unreliable narrators, it was still a story that's been told a thousand times and the narrative was one that's become so familiar as to border on clichéd. There's an absolute glut of drugged out rocker stories both in fiction and documentary, and it's a tale that's been done to death — Daisy Jones & The Six just didn't bring anything new to the table.

The real downfall of Daisy Jones & The Six for me though, was the fact that the format did a great job of building up the characters as people, but did little to build an actual story. It turned the old adage of "Show, don't tell" on it's head. This was 100% tell, with absolutely no show. And because of that, I wasn't drawn in to the story and ended up getting bored about half way through. But I kept going, because I assumed there'd be some pay off at the end with a climactic drama at their final concert. But that didn't happen. And then the mini-reveal at the end just felt tacked-on and meaningless. It wasn't something I was invested enough in to care about.

I know the world seems to be in love with this book, but I'm not one of them. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. It was fine, and worth the read, but I just wasn't that invested.