_lia_reads_'s Reviews (757)

This was one of my most anticipated 2021 reads and I'm grateful I had the opportunity to read it early. Malibu Rising evokes the tone of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which is one of my favorites by TJR. This time, you are taken to the glamorous shores of Malibu to look inside the life of the Riva family. The book takes place over the course of 24 hours, the night of the infamous party hosted by the Riva sibling, but includes lots of flashbacks to when their parents were young and starting their family. 

From the beginning, you know that something is not going to go well with the party this year and I enjoyed feeling the build-up to the big event by the end. The flashbacks were a nice contrast to the rising tension of the party, showing how the siblings had become so reliant on one another. While the point of view shifts between the different members of the family, I felt that not all of the characters were fully fleshed out. I cared the most about what happened to Nina and June, who are arguably the central women of the story, but the other siblings were more like caricatures: the brother who is a professional wrestler, the brother living in the shadow of his slightly older brother, the younger sister with a chip on her shoulder. That said, I did enjoy seeing Nina grow as a character throughout the book, taking up the mantle of her mother.

The setting of the book in the 80s was a lot of fun, even if I sometimes forgot that they weren't in the present-day until TJR name-dropped something from the 1980s. It seems like, overall, a lot of the focus went into unravelling the plot rather than developing the setting or the characters.

Ultimately, this book is a lot of fun. It incorporates a lot of the darker elements that I've come to expect from TJR but mixes them with an interesting setting, fun characters, and an engaging plot. I can totally see someone devouring this read next to a pool or on the beach somewhere this summer.