I have a confession to make.
I didn’t read this month’s Reese’s Book Club book, On the Rooftop, by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton.
There is a good reason.
Reese’s Book Club app categorizes books with their “Book-A-Likes” or books with similar topics and themes. On the Rooftop, the September 2022 pick, was matched with the March 2019 pick Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I loved the audiobook of Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo so I immediately got sidetracked and read Daisy Jones and The Six.
I’ll get back to On the Rooftop, but I wanted to explain why I’m going out of order.
Description from Kobo.com
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 ’n’ 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.
My take:
This is the second Reid book I’ve read. Overall, I enjoy her writing style. She is big on surprises (although I think I figured out most of these before they were revealed), but one thing did through me off in the beginning.
Daisy Jones and The Six is written as an interview of the band members. It’s a bit difficult to get used to the back and forth between characters, but it is a unique way of capturing everyone’s perspective of the same events. That being said, some of the characters sounded similar. I had to go back and check the attributions a few times to make sure I know who was saying what.
Other than that, I enjoyed the tale. The drama amongst the band mates felt authentic and there were a few subplots that added to the fun. I’m not a big music person, but the lyrics that Reid wrote for the book are amazing. While the band isn’t real, I was able to find musicians on YouTube who have taken the lyrics and recorded the songs. It is worth your time to listen.
Also, the book is being turned into a 10-episode miniseries to be released on Amazon Prime. I’ll definitely be watching that.
Audiobooks I listened to:
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Parts II and III kept me company while I road tripped. I’ve watched Season I on Netflix and am crossing my fingers it gets renewed for Season 2. The twenty plus hours of Parts II and III continue following Morpheus’ dysfunctional family. Another plus of the audiobook: Regé-Jean Page (of Bridgerton fame) voices Orpheus, Morpheus’ son.
An Apple series to check out:
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Bad Sisters, a 10-part series. My husband and I have been watching this one together. It is a cringe worthy look inside a dysfunctional family. And oh so interesting.
This is the brief description from The Review Geek:
The drama/thriller centers the Garvey sisters. Eva, Grace, Ursula, Bibi, and Becka are there for each other through thick and thin. But when John Paul–Grace’s husband and the bane of their existence–turns up dead, an intriguing investigation uncovers what a terrible man John Paul was, and just how much each sister might have had to do with his death.
Up next month: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. She is the author of Little Fires Everywhere, another of my favorite reads.
If there is a book you think I should read, drop me an email at carole@carolewolfe.com.
Until next time…