Please Note: I received an audio ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not influence the opinions of my review in any way.
Synopsis (From Goodreads):
Everyone knows Daisy
Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at
the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.
Daisy is
a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs
on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing
at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the
rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is
getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes
people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band
led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his
girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of
impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy
and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to
supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will
become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is
chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral
history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins
Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy
Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an
utterly distinctive voice.
Review:
I first heard of author Taylor Jenkins Reid when my book club selected her novel, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a few months ago. It put me straight into the Hollywood of the 1950's and 1960's. Her newest book, Daisy Jones & The Six
is set in the 1970's. With wildly entertaining characters, I felt like
I was a groupie following this fictional rock band. The audio book,
itself, has a full cast and is delightful. One can understand why Reese
Witherspoon snatched up the movie rights even before publication.
What I Liked:
Audio Narration:
The
audio book has a full cast of very accomplished actors. Jennifer
Beals portrays Daisy as a woman who has done it all: tough,
self-assured, but also with some battle scars. Pablo Schreiber
plays rock star Billy Dunne as a genuinely nice guy... but perhaps in
denial about the harm his drug and alcohol addiction had on his
family.
Even the secondary characters are memorable, as played by this talented group. I particularly enjoyed the performances of Fred Berman (as Eddie) and Ari Fliakos (as Warren). Both acted as though they were the main characters. I loved every scene they were in.
Setting:
The
setting is the rock music scene in the Los Angeles of the 1970's. With
all the vivid details of recording studios, wild parties at the
infamous Chateau Marmont (where John Belushi died), and life on a tour
bus, readers will feel as though they are getting the ultimate behind
the scene access pass!
Characters:
I
loved all the characters in this book. Daisy was heartbreaking in her
longing, while Camilla (Billy's wife) was a study in how a person can
have faith in their partner. I also really liked Karen and Graham.
They were so wonderful together, but you knew their differences would
tear them apart.
Story:
This
book was set up like an oral history. There was a "reporter"
interviewing all of the characters. This format was great because each
person speaks from their own perspective. And, since they are
remembering event from decades ago (and most were drunk or high at that
time), everyone remembers what happened a bit differently. It also
makes the reader question the motives of each character. What do they
gain by recollecting in this way?
I
liked that there were multiple story arcs involving all the
characters. This made me really invest in each person, not just Daisy
and Billy.
Rating:
Release Date: March 5th, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Audio Publisher: Random House Audio
Audio Length: 9 Hours, 4 Minutes
Print Publisher: Ballantine Books
Page Length: 368 Pages
Source: Random House Audio
Format: Audio Book
Recommendation: Very entertaining. I think you should really listen to the audio book version as the actors add so much to the story.
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Synopsis (From Goodreads):
Life under Apartheid has
created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a nine-year-old white girl
living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but
worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the
Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone
after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division
of race, and their meeting should never have occurred . . . until the
Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial
conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and
shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s
daughter goes missing.
After Robin is sent to live with her
loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while
continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the
security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable
bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty
finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she
makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to
make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which
she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her
protection.
Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating
perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex
tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era
South Africa. Hum if You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered
look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.
Review:
This was the book club selection for a group of readers who meet at the wonderful bookstore named, A Great Good Place For Books, in Oakland, California. I have never participated in a book club before, but I was so thankful that I did. This was a marvelous book! South Africa's Apartheid is seen from two viewpoints: a ten-year-old white child who has lost her parents, and a black mother searching for her daughter.
What I Liked:
Setting:
The book is set in South Africa in the 1970's. I was a child of about the same age as one of the main characters, Robin, at that time, but I was completely oblivious as to what was going on there. As I learned from reading this book, that was not an accident. South Africa was a very isolated country, with information going both in, and out, of the country tightly controlled by the government. People in South Africa just accepted their racism as the norm, and those living in other countries didn't have a true picture of what Apartheid meant.
The novel's action takes place in several places in South Africa. Beauty, the other main character, is shown to be very happy in her small village. This is a celebration of a small community, where everyone looks after each other, and walking around barefoot is not a sign of poverty, but of connecting to the land. Later, in her quest to find her daughter, Beauty must journey to Johannesburg where the noise and crowding of a large city seem depressing and scary.
Robin also moves from a small mining outpost where she can run outside all day playing, to her aunt's small apartment in Johannesburg. She also finds the city strange, and feels isolated and alone.
Characters:
Robin, one of the two main characters, is the young white child who is struggling to come to terms with a tragedy. I love her dawning awareness that she has been raised a racist. Most children automatically assume that their parents' opinions are correct. But as Robin sees more of the world, she comes to realize how wrong she is to treat people differently based on their skin color .
In our book club, we had some disagreement over whether or not Robin was immature, or overly mature over the course of the book. I think she is feeling very abandoned by those who are supposed to be taking care of her, and this leads her to do some selfish things. But cut her some slack, she is only ten!
Beauty is relentlessly seeking information about her teenage daughter, who went missing during the Soweto uprising. She cannot accept that her daughter could be involved in (possibly) violent resistance against the government. Although she hates how blacks are treated, she doesn't see how things will change, and just wants to live unobtrusively. Can she learn to understand her daughter's actions?
Edith is Robin's care-free aunt. She represents how women are changing in the 1970's. She has a career as a flight attendant, and travels the world with no ties to a husband or children, until Robin comes along. One can really see Edith's struggle between keeping her independence and her love for Robin. Sometimes I found her hard to like, as many of her actions seem thoughtless. But she is a very human character, and I appreciated that she wasn't supremely good or bad.
Story:
The story is told in alternating chapters in the voices of Robin and Beauty. They do not meet until nearly the middle of the book! But this gives the reader time to understand each of them on their own.
I was very moved by Beauty's search for her daughter. I know if my own daughter went missing, I would move heaven and earth to find her. Beauty keeps asking questions and looking for clues, so much so that she is being threatened to stop her search. But who can blame a mother for wanting to know the truth, however painful.
Robin and Edith are thrown together by a tragedy. While their relationship is bumpy, they both do some growing up over the course of the book. Robin starts to understand how to be self-reliant, which is a positive thing. All children need to learn that others will not always take care of them.
Edith also makes peace with her new role as parent. There are some rough times for Edith as she rages at this responsibility that is thrust upon her. She is grieving both the loss of a family member, but also of her freedom.
Rating:
Release Date: July 11th, 2017
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Author: Bianca Marais
Page Length: 432 pages
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback book
Recommendation: This was a powerful historical fiction about South Africa during Apartheid, with characters you will love.
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