“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story.”
Daisy Jones and The Six
Daisy Jones and The Six is a novel that has gotten a lot of hype since it was published, and a tv adaptation of the show is forthcoming this year. I have only read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo prior to this by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which I adored with my whole heart. I liked Daisy Jones and The Six a lot. But I didn’t love it quite as much as I thought I would.
The story is told in an interview style, and it tells the story of Daisy Jones and her rise to fame. It also tells the story of Billy Dunne, lead singer of The Six and The Six’s own skyrocket to fame and the events that would eventually tear them apart.
Daisy Jones is spunky and freespirited. She has no formal vocal training, but she can write decent songs and her voice stops people in their tracks. She’s incredible, but she wants to write her own songs, not sing what other people have written for her.
Billy Dunne is the slightly arrogant lead singer of The Six. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the head of The Six. They only play the songs he writes and chooses. Billy has had it rough. He fell heavily into drugs and alcohol but has gotten sober for his wife, Camilla and daughter.
But there’s one person who can ruin him.
Daisy Jones.
Daisy Jones is everything he is drawn to. She parties hard, takes drugs all day long and drinks often. But when Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne start writing songs together, it’s a kind of magic they both love. And the more time they spend time together, the harder it becomes for both of them to stay apart.
This book is good. I enjoyed the story, and the interview format was cool at first. But it’s not long into the book that I figured out how it was going to end. It’s a fairly predictable story. I also think we missed out on some of Daisy and Billy’s depth by having it told just through interviews. And the interview style leaves the reader with a slightly skewed version of the truth. We’re hearing versions of the same story, but never really the truth. Which, in reality, is really clever, but maybe left me slightly disappointed as a reader.
I liked Daisy Jones a lot. A lot more than I liked Billy Dunne. I was very frustrated with him for a lot of the book. And I think maybe that’s the brilliance of a book like this. These characters are so flawed. They make so many mistakes, and it’s real. You know Daisy Jones is chasing fame but also struggling with being alone. She doesn’t know who she is without it. Without drugs. I think part of the reason I was frustrated with her is because she just didn’t get the help she needed when it mattered the most, but I also understood her fear and hesitation to get help when she needed it.
As I am writing this, you can see how mixed my feelings on this story are, and right now, I am focused solely on Daisy and Billy, but a lot of other character relationships are explored during this book, most notably Karen and Graham’s.
I don’t really want to talk about their relationship. There were things that happened between them near the end that were really hard to read and left me feeling conflicted (but for those of you that have read this, I did respect Karen’s decision). This book has left me with a lot to think about. It’s a good story.
One thing I wish I had known was that the song lyrics to the songs they wrote together were at the back of the book. I would have loved to read those as they came up in conversation and Billy and Daisy described writing them.
Overall, I think it was the end of this book that just left me a little disappointed. But I think this book can be amazing in a tv adaptation so I am so stoked to see how they handle it, and I really want to see the songs played!!
But I would be remiss if I did not share some lyrics of recent albums I have listened to that make me think of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne:
“Rain, he wanted it comfortable
Midnight Rain, Taylor Swift
I wanted that pain
He wanted a bride
I was making my own name
Chasing that fame
He stayed the same
All of me changed like midnight.”
“But, baby, I ain’t Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman, Kacey Musgraves
I don’t know how to lasso the love out of you
Don’t you know I’m only human?
And if I let you down, I don’t mean to
All I need’s a place to land
I don’t need a Superman to win my lovin’
‘Cause, baby, I ain’t Wonder Woman”
Of Worlds Forgotten 
Leave a Reply