I don’t know if I have ever seen an author get as much hype as Taylor Jenkins Reid does––except maybe Colleen Hoover––and I just don’t really get it? To be fair, I have not read either of her most popular releases, Daisy Jones and the Six, or The Seven Husband of Evelyn Hugo, but still.
I was actually planning on reading both of those books before I got to Malibu Rising, but I just couldn’t help myself. It’s summer, and the cover was so pretty, that I just had to start reading. I was woefully disappointed.
Malibu Rising follows all four of the Riva kids––they are famous and at the end of the summer, they always throw an epic party. But after their party in August of 1983, things are going to change forever.
The story was told from a third-person point of view, which I don’t think was the best decision? Something about the way it was told was just strange. I think that because of the third-person point of view, I started to feel very detached from the characters, and story in general. By the end of the book, I just like didn’t care about what happened to any of the characters? I was unable to connect with anyone, and I just have to attribute that to the way in which this book was told.
Furthermore, I think that a solid 50 to 100 pages of this book could have been cut out. There were a lot of filler chapters describing background characters, especially towards the end of the book; there were so many that I just started to skim them, because they were meaningless and added absolutely nothing to the book.
Lastly, I thought that the ending was just a little bit underwhelming? Throughout the whole book, it is hinted to us that there is going to be a big culmination of the plot at the end of the book; there is a buildup of suspense, leading us to believe something huge is going to happen, and nothing really happens? Like, all of this suspense was built up, for nothing to happen. Not only was it incredibly disappointing, but I also just felt like I wasted my time reading this book.
I know that a lot of Taylor Jenkins Reid fans adored this book, but I really didn’t, and I’m now reconsidering if I want to even pick up her other works, because of how disappointing this was. I've had copies of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six for ages, and I can never bring myself to start reading them, and now I don't know if I ever will.
All in all, I really do not recommend.
Rating ➳ 2/5 stars
(tw: alcoholism, death of a parent, abandonment, drug use, infidelity)
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