Just because it is in Malibu's nature to burn, so was it in one particular person's nature to set fire and walk away.
Malibu Rising
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: Historical Fiction
About: Everyone knows the Rivas family, and everyone wants in on their cliff-side house party. But while present day Rivas seem rich, successful and magnetically desirable, their past show a much harsher life. One that can't help but bleed into their future. And as the party of the year gets out of hand, so do the Rivas.
Thoughts
So I honestly didn't get the hype with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, then I fell in love with Daisy Jones and the Six, and now here we are on my third book by Taylor Jenkins Reid and I'm converted. Malibu Rising didn't consumed me like Daisy Jones but I was still absolutely swept away. Reid's writing is hypnotic. It's pure character study and you get so sucked into these lives that you have to keep reading, wanting to know everything.
I loved the setting, I loved the flashbacks, and I loved the focus on family. June's love for her children, the siblings love for each other, and how the love is far from perfect, how it is tested and stretched until it reaches breaking point. Relationships feel like they're running to the cliff's edge - to either soar or fall apart. And yet it doesn't read so dramatic. It's a build up of small moments, sweet ones and heart-breaking ones that span generations. The family histories are told in such engaging ways that I really felt like I understood each character - where they came from and how those moments shaped them.
The cast of characters is long and any one of them could have been the main character. I was invested in June, Nina, Jay, Hud, Kit, even Mick, on a fairly equal scale. I wanted to follow all of them and they all had interesting elements to their stories. I will say the party goers were a little too much at times. When the party gets started we switch to a lot of new characters like we're flicking through a catalogue. I liked the idea that everyone has their own mini drama going on, but I just didn't care about the random waitress, or Kit's friend, or the runaway bride actress, or even the adopted daughter looking for family. It was like a bunch of gossip pages had been stuck inside the novel and I wanted to get back to the main action.
I also felt cheated by the fire. The prologue sets up the idea of Malibu burning as this huge event that, yes, happens a lot, but in particular is going to happen that day. We have the timeline counting down the hours until the party because we know that the fire is going to happen during the party. So I expected the fire to be important. Not symbolic. I expected tragedy. I didn't want it, but I did think the fire was going to be impactful. Instead there was half and hour left in the audiobook and the fire still hadn't happened. And when it did... it was pure symbolism. So that was a bit of a tease.
But those are really minor complaints. Overall, this was such an enjoyable read. The characters and setting are shaped so perfectly around each other that I'm sure I won't be able to think of Malibu without thinking of the Rivas family.
Comments