Review also found on my blog.


UnsolvedAThon Challenge #2: read a very well-known/famous book


content warnings: drug use, overdosing, alcoholism, alcohol abuse, infidelity, death, domestic violence, abortion
representation: black side character, gay side character

“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fucking story.”

Taylor Jenkins Reid has done it again lads. I was kind of worried going into this one because I’ve seen some mixed reactions to it, but considering the fact that the other two TJR books I’ve read (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Maybe in Another Life) were both five stars, I was still generally optimistic. And god, I love this book so much.

This book follows the rise and fall of one of the biggest rock bands throughout the ‘70s. It’s written as if it were the script for a documentary series, with the band members, their family members and other industry people all telling the oral history of the band, often with lots of contradictions and disagreements.

I can understand why that format might not work for some people, and at first I was worried that it was going to make it more difficult to become invested in the story but I found it really easy to get engrossed in the story of these characters.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I liked any of the characters. They’re all deeply flawed, complicated people who are recounting a time in their lives when they were morally at their lowest, and yet I found myself invested in their lives. Not in the sense that I cared about them as people, more like I was just fascinated by who they were as people and their story.

Except for Eddie. Eddie’s a little bitch.

A thread that ran throughout this story that I loved was female power. There are several significant female characters - Daisy, Karen and Camila being the main ones, Simone to a lesser extent - and there are many moments where they reflect on being women in the ‘70s. Daisy and Karen in particular, both being famous rock stars, reflect on the ways they had to subtly manipulate the people around them in order to get anywhere.

There’s also lots of talk of women helping other women, especially at the end with a gut wrenching scene between Daisy and Camila. It was probably my favourite scene of the entire book and I wasn’t expecting it to have the emotional resonance that it did, but I was nearly sobbing throughout the whole scene.

I can understand why people that just give absolutely zero shits about rock and roll in ‘70s might not care about this, but I found it fascinating, inspiring and heartbreaking. I will never doubt Taylor Jenkins Reid ever again.