Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another review!

For this review, I take a look at the wildly popular Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Band of Characters

• Daisy Jones: One of the lead singers of Daisy Jones & the Six
• Simone: One of Daisy’s closest friends, also a singer
• Billy and Graham Dunne: Billy is the other lead singer, and Graham is the guitarist, the two started the band
• Pete and Eddie: Other guitarists for the band
• Karen: Pianist for the band
• Rod: Bands manager
• Teddy: Producer
• Camila: Billy’s wife

My Review

Here’s the deal. I didn’t love the book but I didn’t hate it. I don’t usually go for historical fiction books, and so for someone who doesn’t like these books, I feel like my rating of 6/10 is fair. What pulled me to check out the book is that I had heard in all the hype that the book was loosely based on Stevie Nicks life, and I am the kind of girl who plays Silver Spring on repeat when my heart gets broken so I thought if there was any book in this genre to try it would be this one.

I did enjoy that the book was written in an interview style. With so many different characters in the book, it made it easier to keep up with what was going, on and who was present. It just added a different touch to it as well from other books.

I think my biggest dislike of the book was the relationship between Daisy and Billy. I was just honestly perplexed and was waiting for them to kiss or do something but they never did…I mean look I am supposed to believe that the two write passionate songs about each other but never had any type of romantic relationship? I mean I understood that this was based on Stevie and Lindsey’s relationship but the two were in a relationship together for a long time so it made sense that they wrote the songs they did about each other. I really hated Billy’s relationship with his wife as well. There were parts that were sweet but others that were just strange to me and made me think these characters are supposed to be really insecure or something. I know some people may see this and freak but just hold up. Camila consistently stuck by Billy and his bullshit and some people may say that makes her a very secure woman but I just saw an extremely insecure one. I mean you can’t be a secure person and be with someone who consistently walks all over you. I mean yeah Billy comes around but she put up with his shit way longer than I would have.

What I enjoyed most was a look into the lifestyle of that time. I mean drug culture was so different in the 70’s and 80’s and I found the party/celebrity lifestyle in this time to be so interesting.

The only relationship I felt had much sustenance in the book was Graham and Karen. By sustenance I mean a plot line that felt kind of satisfying. It had the romance and the drama that made their story more exciting than others but also more realistic because they were actually romantic with one another.

Summary and Commentary

***Please be aware this section has spoilers***

The book starts off with a look into Daisy’s home life. Daisy was raised with a lot of privilege but her parents were terribly neglectful. This allowed her way too much freedom at a young age, and she got into the party lifestyle very early. When she gets into partying Daisy learns early on that despite her young age she can get herself into most bars and clubs. During this time she meets Simone who is a disco artist and Simone kind of takes on a big sister role with her and looks out for her. I appreciated the character of Simone a lot because she understood early that she couldn’t control Daisy but could be the one to make sure she was okay at the end of the night. We learn early on that Daisy is very smart, but a bit too smart for the times. People only respect her for her good looks and not her smarts and skills. This drives Daisy more into using drugs and parting hard. Daisy talks about dating artists and them stealing things from her, lines she would say and such, and would use them in hit songs. She hated being famous people’s inspiration, and because of this, she started writing her own music.

Next, we get a look into Billy and Graham’s life. The two grew up on the opposite spectrum as Daisy. The two grew up in a working-class family, and their father left when they were young. The two started getting into music at a young age and started doing some songwriting. The two make a band with Warren and Pete and the guys start off doing small weddings and shows. At a wedding, they are playing at Billy meets Camila. Billy is presented to kind of be this ladies’ man who never stays with one girl long and Camila is the one to tie him down. Camila seems to understand the lifestyle he is in and seems to be okay with the fact that he can’t devote all his time to her. The band starts to get some more notoriety and they bring on Karen to the band who is a keyboard player. Graham instantly takes a liking to her but keeps a distance due to their work situation. At a show, a manager named Rod sees the band and wants to take them on seeing the potential they have. Billy asks Camila to come to California with them as Rod suggested they go there for a better chance to get big. She says no, as she’s angry he wants to go. She presents herself as being all sick about them breaking up but doesn’t do anything about it. The band meets Teddy who is a producer and feels he can help elevate the music. They get a record deal and Billy calls Camila and asks her to marry him and she says yes. I don’t know why but I was just rolling my eyes at this. I mean I am maybe just not as lovey as is needed for a book like this but I just thought this was lame. Lame he asked, and lame she said yes. It’s clear she couldn’t handle the lifestyle as much as she wanted to act like she could.

We get a look at Daisy getting her first record deal. She feels like she should have full control of everything, but that’s just not how the business works. If I am honest, I did not love Daisy in these parts. It was clear her privilege was showing. She had always had everything she wanted in life, and it all came relatively easy. She didn’t understand what it was like to have to follow someone else’s rules and guidelines, to have to consider their ideas. She can’t handle it. She thinks everything must come to her as she wants it. If I am being honest throughout parts like this in the book I struggled to not dislike Daisy. Don’t get me wrong I understood that she desired to make her art how she wanted it, but I couldn’t help but feel like she often ignored the privileges she had in front of her. Next, we get a look into the Six moving to LA. It’s clear all of them living together is chaos but in a good way. They released their first album and it did pretty well, and they plan a tour. Camila tells Billy the day before they leave for the tour that she’s pregnant. They two have a wedding that same night. I know this part was supposed to be romantic or something but I hate when people get married because they are pregnant it just makes me want to scream.

As if I could have predicted it Billy is all weird after the wedding and realizes that he has tied himself down in a way that he isn’t sure he is ready for. Billy gets intoxicated and cheats on her. He proceeds to do this many more times. I mean it was clear at this point that he had only married her because she was pregnant and not because he was ready to be married. I felt bad for Camila honestly and this didn’t make me like Billy much. Camila goes to surprise them on tour one night and walks in on Billy with a girl. She freaks at him and says that she isn’t going to let him mess up his life. To this I was like girl… have some respect for your own life. She leaves that night but leaves him a letter and says he has until November 30^th to be wild and then after that, he needs to act right. Their baby is due December 1^st. I honestly wanted to put the book down at this. I know that’s dramatic, but I was like ‘is this whole book going to be her trying to control him, but also pandering to his bad behaviours? Her not wanting him to do bad things, but then just allowing the rope to get longer and longer every time he does?’ I mean to be fair I wasn’t totally wrong. Of course, Billy gets worse over this time and misses the birth of their first child to go to rehab. Camila has a baby girl named Julia. After two months in rehab, Billy meets his baby for the first time and Camila and Billy stay together.

Next, we see Daisy again struggling with her album. She realizes that she expected to be given a lot more than she earned and decides to do it the way the studio wants. This means that she still gives up some control over it. At this part, I did start to like Daisy more because at least she was aware of why she acted the way she did. Her album does alright and now her name starts to get out there. Back with the band, now that Billy is out of rehab they start working on a new album. The album feels like it’s missing something and it’s recommended that the band bring on Daisy to a track called Honeycomb because they feel like she would add well to the song. Billy’s not really into the idea as the song is one he wrote for Camila, but he was overvoted. They bring Daisy into the studio to record. She sounds good on the song but while singing it she changes up some lyrics to the song. She gives it more of a heartbreak edge rather than a professing love edge. Billy doesn’t like the change. However, he meets his maker when it comes to Daisy because she isn’t easily intimidated and doesn’t fall for Billy’s demands. For the first time, Billy sees that he can’t make all the decisions all the time. I did like this about Daisy, she isn’t willing to fall for other people’s intimidation, especially when Billy is the only one who isn’t giving her a positive review. When he’s the only one that doesn’t like it she can tell it’s not based on whether it’s good for the song or not but it’s a control thing for him.

While the band prepared for their tour for their new album they took up residency at a bar playing shows. Daisy isn’t invited to any of them, and this frustrates her. On the album the song she sings with Billy is doing the best and it’s clear Billy excludes her for this reason. Daisy shows up at one of their shows and they invite her on stage to sing with them. Due to the reaction at this show, they invite Daisy to open for them on the tour. The tour starts and we find out that Camila is pregnant with twins and I was like oh brother. They are back out on tour so something has to happen. I will go into detail about these parts but just jump forward to say that nothing does.  Look my issue is that Billy’s addiction is not a real representation of how addiction would work. There is absolutely no way that Billy would get sober, and with how much he was around substances never relapse. It’s just legitimately not possible. I don’t like when addiction is presented in this way because the amount of people who get sober and never relapse is about 1%. The experience of getting sober means going through relapses, because the only way you can learn about yourself and what triggers you is by living it. Daisy is dating a man named Hank who often keeps her supplied with drugs and is a toxic boyfriend all around. The people around her clearly notice things aren’t healthy but don’t know how to help her. Hank however becomes her manager and it’s clear he’s not the one to be making any career choices for her. The band convinces her to drop Hank and take on their manager, which works well since she is already touring with them. Also, Karen and Graham finally get together which was cute. They seemed at first to have a really sweet relationship.

During the tour, Daisy and Billy have all of these weird intimate moments on stage but never actually have anything romantic happen. I don’t know I just hated all of this. I was like okay if they are going to eye fuck each other all the time can they just kiss or something already? While on the tour a magazine writer writes an article about the band. However, the article mostly has to do with how he thinks that Daisy should join the band full-time. The band is frustrated with it but they see the guy’s point in it. Daisy ends up joining and is offered to be on the new album with them. Sometimes it seems like Camila had come around to understand the lifestyle that Billy was in and that he’s not around a lot of the time. She gives birth to their twins. Billy writes this song called Aurora for Camila. Camila tells him that he needs Daisy on the song and he realizes that he’s been writing with her in mind. With Daisy joining the band Billy continues to have to act as if he’s okay giving up some control. That’s not the truth though but he likes to present to the band members that they get to make as many decisions as he does.

Next, we go into the process of the band recording this new album. Daisy and Billy butt heads early on because Billy is under the belief that the album will be made up of all his songs, even though Daisy has also written some. Billy again passively acts like he will check out her stuff but doesn’t make much effort at first. Teddy pushes for Billy and Daisy to work on the songs together, and to not be divided. Daisy is still very heavily using drugs at this point and this seems to be the biggest reason why Billy dislikes her. I mean he of all people should understand what she’s going through but the man has very little empathy and only thinks about how her actions make him feel, and not how they affect her. Billy makes a jab at her for her drug usage and she throws a jab at him for holding his wife on this god-like pedestal and writing every song about her. I mean I just felt like Daisy was jealous because she doesn’t have that herself because I don’t really see his love for his wife as a bad thing. It is weird though how much he equates her to his sobriety. I mean it made me think that he used her as a crutch because he kept him in line. The two squash the beef kind of and are able to be a bit nicer to each other. Camila starts to get a bit tense as Daisy and Billy spend many long days writing songs together, but she trusts him and doesn’t worry.

It’s clear that Daisy feels this connection to Billy that he never reciprocates. Daisy has this toxic idea of what love and connection are, and Billy dismissing her and treating her like she isn’t as important as he is, and then turning around and giving her slight praise is titillating for her. Daisy ends up leaving the studio one day and knows she’s supposed to come back later, but doesn’t. Teddy and Billy go looking for her and she is at a party extremely intoxicated. Billy has to remove himself from the situation because it’s too triggering for him. The next day Billy writes this song about Daisy and it just made my eyes roll. Billy is on this whole thing about how it’s not about Daisy it’s about sobriety. Men like Billy always piss me off, he constantly does things like this which most people would interoperate him having feelings for Daisy, but then he turns around and says it’s actually about something entirely different. I mean he keeps doing this thing where he’s clearly playing with Daisy’s feelings and knows what he’s doing but then acts clueless. Daisy and Billy have this weird intimate moment when she’s recording the song which he just passes off as nothing. Graham and Billy butt heads because Graham wrote a song and Billy essentially tells him to stay in his lane. Ugh, Billy is so insufferable.

Daisy and Billy have this moment in which Billy is kind of flirty, Daisy goes in for the kiss, but Billy stops it. Daisy of course is mortified and feels like an idiot. I mean really Billy needed to pull away from her if he was going to keep playing games like this but it was honestly just so annoying. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want Camila to be cheated on but Billy either needs to cheat on her or not because all of this emotional affair stuff is just dumb. Billy freaks out and goes into this spiral of telling everyone that Daisy needs to leave the band. Camila hears him and suspects what she always suspected which is that the two have some type of feelings for each other. Daisy brings in a new song to the band which she wrote about her heart being broken by Billy. It’s a scorned woman song. Billy of course hates it but the band loves it and outvotes him to record it and have it on the album. Billy being the control freak he is obviously doesn’t want to sing a song about him being an ass, so he freaks from losing control of the band. Control that was never really his to start may I add. The band goes to take the cover photo for the album cover. It’s clear that there again is this level of emotional intimacy between Billy and Daisy by the way they look at each other on the album cover. The album centers around them.

After the album is done everyone takes some time off. Daisy goes to travel, and Billy goes to spend time with his family and touch up the album. Karen and Graham are still together and spend their time together. While travelling Daisy meets a man named Nicky who is an Italian prince. The two quickly create a dangerous co-dependant relationship, where Daisy relies on him for drugs and he supplies it for her. The two become quickly married, which is clearly a way for Nicky to maintain some level of control over Daisy. He clung to her the first time he met her and it was clear he had no plan of letting go. The band hears the changes that Billy made to the album, and no one loves it, but they know especially since Daisy isn’t around they can’t do much. Billy always makes sure he has control over everything. Daisy finally comes back with Nicky and everyone of course is shocked that she’s married. Billy of course isn’t happy… even though he didn’t want her. This creates a lot of tension between the two and they start talking even less than they did before after Daisy wrote the broken heart song about him. Nicky of course kind of becomes Daisy’s Yoko and creates tension with Billy since he isn’t stupid and can tell there’s something up with the two of them. He tells Billy to leave Daisy alone and Daisy backs Nicky, which crushes poor little Billy’s heart.

The band gets ready to go on tour for the Aurora album. They had to take two buses as Daisy and Billy couldn’t be around each other. Daisy is deep in her addiction and Nicky continues to supply her with a lot of drugs, or even force them on her when she doesn’t want them. One night Daisy almost overdoses and is horrified that Nicky didn’t take any real action to make sure she was okay, out of fear of getting in trouble for all the drugs. It was clear to her that Nicky didn’t value her life at all. She decides to divorce him after this and finds that she had an easy time pulling away from the intense drug usage once she was away from Nicky. She still was using though but not to the crazy level she had been. We then find out that during this time Karen became aware she was pregnant. Karen is painfully aware that having a child would mean the end of her career. Graham of course wants her to keep the baby and does not understand where Karen is coming from when she talks about an abortion. Karen points out to him that he’s not willing to give up his career to take care of the baby so why should she? Graham of course is over-emotional. He acts like he so badly wants this baby but is unwilling to put his career on pause to do so. Graham was a huge ass in this part and of course, is pissed when Karen goes through with the abortion. He couldn’t stand being around her. Men like Graham are so annoying, like if you want a baby so bad then you stay home and take care of it.

With Nicky being gone Daisy and Billy are getting along a little better. The two have this moment on stage where they are singing together where again there is this air of intimacy without there ever being any. Billy kind of admits finally that he loves Daisy. He says that he loves Camila but it was in a different way. In a way in which he knew she was always there, Daisy differed by bringing adrenaline and excitement. Daisy tells Billy she wants to get clean. Billy seems like he’s committed to helping her but never really pulls through. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t his job to get Daisy clean, but he shouldn’t have offered to be there for her if he wasn’t going to take it as seriously as was needed. Teddy has died and this is what ultimately distracts Billy from helping her, and with Teddy’s death, Daisy goes back into hardcore use. Billy finally has a moment of weakness with his sobriety (something more realistic with sobriety) but is able to pull himself back before he uses it. Everyone is really crushed at the loss of Teddy and the band seems to lose a lot of their momentum and passion.

The Chicago stadium is a big venue for the band. Daisy of course is still in love with Billy and seeing him with his family at the show is hard for her. Graham tries to talk with Billy about what’s going on with him and Karen but Billy blows him off. It shows honestly the selfishness of Billy. Don’t get me wrong this maybe wasn’t the best time for the chat, but Graham is always unquestionably there for Billy but Billy isn’t often there for him. During the show, Daisy and Billy have a lot of intense moments. After the show, Billy goes to the bar and contemplates breaking his sobriety and having a drink. We then find out that the person interviewing the bandmates is Julia, Camila and Billy’s now grown-up child. We find out that Camila and a young Julia went to Daisy after the show because Daisy was having a breakdown outside of the room. Daisy recounts to her that while a young Julia slept in the bed Camila essentially begged Daisy to leave the band so she didn’t lose her husband. She’s well aware that Billy loves Daisy and wants Daisy to go so their family won’t be ruined. I mean at this point I kind of saw Camila in a very pathetic light. I mean to beg the woman that your husband loves to leave is just sad. It’s clear she doesn’t have a ton of respect for herself because she wants to force this man who loves someone else to stay with her. I am just a very different person from Camila and I would never beg another woman to give me back my man. I get that she sees that obviously he still loves her to a degree, and thinks that they can rekindle the full fire if Daisy is out of the picture. And so, Daisy leaves the band after that night. Graham and Karen can’t be around each other and leave. With Teddy gone Billy isn’t as passionate about writing music at the moment. The bands done.

The ending of this book honestly felt so lame. I mean there wasn’t really any conclusion. Camila and Billy stay together and raise their children and then Camila dies some years later. When she died she left a note to Julia to tell Billy to reach out to Daisy. For that, I wanted to throw the book across the room. The characters are quite a bit older now and now she wants to give Billy the chance to explore this love? The opportunity she took from him? I don’t know I am just not a mushy person. I see myself as more of a realist and I just saw a lot of the characters in this book to be insufferably selfish. They only looked out for what was best for them and generally not others. I mean I guess that’s the whole thing with being in a famous band right? You become a bit self-absorbed.

Look I didn’t think this book was bad at all, but it definitely was not for me. I found the content to be kind of boring and I just kept waiting for something exciting to happen but nothing ever really did. I loved the earlier chapters in the book but found myself struggling to get through the end because it was just the same thing over and over again. Daisy and Billy give each other these intense looks on stage but nothing more happens than this. I mean Stevie and Lindsey were known for their intense looks to each other on stage when they sang, but the two had a like 7 year long relationship so this made sense. In the context of Daisy and Billy who had no romantic relationship all these looks didn’t make as much sense. Daisy writing this intense woman-scorned song didn’t make much sense because realistically she and Billy had no type of romantic relationship. However, Stevie’s writing these songs did make sense. I just didn’t understand why Billy was written to be this man in this very serious relationship with three children because there really was no way he and Daisy were ever going to have a relationship which sucked. I mean did no one else want them to have some kind of romance in this story??

I hope you enjoyed this review! I would love to hear what you thought if these are usually the kind of books you like, and what your perspective was on the book. Feel free to also check out my Instagram @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I put out a new review.