“Since when do you wear dresses?” he said, the second he saw her. “Ugh,” Kit said, frowning. How were you supposed to change—in ways both big and small—when your family was always there to remind you of exactly the person you apparently signed an ironclad contract to be?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising
I’ve read two TJR books in the past two months. I plowed through both of them within seventy-two hours. Addictive is the only way I know how to describe them.
Nina Riva doesn’t understand how it led to this. One minute, she is a beloved surf icon and covergirl, married to one of the most successful athletes of the century. Now, she is alone in her cliffside mansion while her ex is off with another tennis pro. Nina knows she can endure it; she’s had enough experience for multiple lifetimes. But all she really wants is to surf, have her privacy, and know that her family is safe and financially secure.
And she wants to add cheese back to her fucking sandwich, and eat the fries on the side, even though her agent told her to cut back on carbs and saturated fats.
But Nina is the good girl. She does what needs to be done to keep her family fed. And, if giving up cheese will keep her in modeling money, she will give up that cheese and never ask about it again.
It’s been like this ever since Nina became the head of the family. We flash back to the mid-1950s when her father, an up-and-coming singer, meets Nina’s seventeen-year-old mother in Malibu on the beach in front of her parent’s seaside restaurant.
The story flips between the story of June and Mick, Nina and her siblings from the 1950s to the late 70s, and between a single day in 1983.
As I mentioned up top, this story is addictive. We are introduced to each of the Riva siblings and all of their messy inner monologues about what they need to do or not do at their family’s annual summer party. Nina wants to be the perfect hostess and make sure everyone has a great time. Jay is obsessed with his latest crush, as well as a secret he doesn’t know how to share with his brother, Hudson. Hudson has a huge secret and, as the most sensitive Riva, is convinced his secret will lead to a complete rupture of his current life. Kit, the baby sister, is pissed off and generally annoyed, but hoping to get some clarity at the party.
The pacing of the story is what really gets me. It is so damn good. I can easily see this become a miniseries or a show with a two season arc. The tension builds and builds, not just with the main characters, but with the ancillary characters as well. It culminates in a final confrontation that wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped, but I was happy with how things resolved at the end.
I loved the eighties setting. I could perfectly envision everything that was happening at the party, from the decor of the celebrity mansion to the Hollywood stars and beach bums mingling in the driveway.
In Daisy Jones & The Six, the storytelling device of using magazine interview style does not work for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. In this book, the POV shifts could have been annoying but I was usually able to follow along even though the character POV sometimes shifted from paragraph to paragraph.
My main compliment and complaint is about Nina. She is the story. The story is about her. I loved her. And that girl has gone through it. But the way her character changed was suspect. I loved how we went along with her on her journey, but her epiphany and transformation seemed a bit too easy. Like I could totally see her changing her mind and falling right back into the same habits as before. The type of insecurity she grew up with cannot be cured or resolved by a few months of self-care, no matter how strong or durable her character is. I haven’t read Carrie Soto is Back, but I’m hoping for a few hints of how Nina’s life is going when we return to LA in a decade’s time.
Side note: If I could wish for anything, I want another chapter dedicated to George Sr. and Lucille Bluth’s play-by-play of this party because you KNOW they were there.