Malibu Rising: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel Paperback – 20 Sept. 2023

I recently went away for a week’s holiday and had deliberately left the time free to read purely for pleasure and took with me half a dozen books from my TBR. One of the books which made its way into the suitcase was Malibu Rising. Don’t ask me why I chose this one rather than any of her others, I think it was purely because the setting made it sound like it would be a good beach read. And was it… in spades. (Terrible pun, I know. Sorry, not sorry.)This is a dual timeline story telling the story of the four Riva children living in Malibu in 1983 as young adults and, going back in time, the story of their parents failing in love in California in the late 50’s and growing their family. The Rivas’ father was a legendary singer and so the story is touched with the glamour of Hollywood in those days.I absolutely fell in love with the Riva children and the dynamic between them. For reasons I won’t go in to because I don’t want to include any spoilers in the review, the story is not all happiness and beaches and Hollywood glitz – although there is enough of that to make the part of me which picked up the book for those reasons very happy – but is a beautiful exploration of the ups and downs of relationships, especially those of celebrities, and what effect that has on the offspring of such marriages and how it bonds those children together. Despite the fact I have no experience of the Hollywood lifestyle, or indeed the Malibu life (much as I wish I did), I related very hard with the four Riva children, particularly Nina. I myself am the eldest of four children and could sympathise with her feeling that she has to take on the parental burden of the younger ones when the parents step out of that role (although my parents were nothing like the Rivas, I hasten to add.)Aside from being great at formulating a ripping good story, Taylor Jenkins Reid is a genius at character development, creating a sense of place and her writing is just beautiful. This book elicited huge emotion in me, even more so than Maybe in Another Life, and it was one of those books that kept me thinking about it long after I had finished it. Still now, more than two weeks later, I am still feeling emotional about this book and I know it is one I will return to again in the future. I absolutely adored the ending in particular, it was just so perfect and I was cheering for Nina and her amazing siblings until the last page.Is it too early to say that Taylor Jenkins Reid is becoming one of my favourite authors after only two books? I don’t care, it’s how I feel at the moment and I can’t wait to read her entire back catalogue. As I said, I already have three waiting to go and I’ll not leave such a big gap before I get to those. Watch this space.

Very enjoyable novel.The Hollywood stories were good too. This is my kind of book and I didn’t want it to end.

I did enjoy the first half of this book but I just feel a bit 'meh' about it in it's entirety.It wasn't really a page turner for me nor did it have me hooked and because of this it's took me a few days to read.The book deals with some nitty gritty storylines that I'm sure a lot of readers will relate to. I myself found parts of it relatable. As stated above I enjoyed the first half. I enjoyed reading all about Mick and June in the past then how it would jump forward to the present time and how everything coincided but I think the second half just kind of let it down for me. The ending just felt a bit rushed for me personally. I do appreciate that we got closure for some of the characters but for the majority I felt the closure was lacking and I'm left wanting to know a bit more. Overall I feel the book just kind of dragged even though I enjoyed parts it. Basically I didn't love this book but nor did I hate it.I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this particular book but it hasn't put me off reading more by this author. For example I really want to read 'The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo' and 'Daisy Jones And The Six.' Hopefully I enjoy those more than I enjoyed this one.

I can't even count how many times this book made me fight back tears. The sad and the happy ones. The way Taylor Jenkins Reid told this story took me on a roller coaster of emotions. From the very first pages I couldn't wait to find out how it would end. I read it in two days and would love to find out more about how life turned out for the whole Riva family ❤️ Maybe one day we'll get a sequel...

I liked this. I liked the spirit it's written in. I appreciate it can be a bit flat for long periods of time and the "WTF ending" (which I'll get to) threatened to derail what came before, but I'll stand up for myself against a lot of negativity surrounding this book and say I did rather enjoy it. There is a simplicity to it, but it has a sort of aura, and a sort of charisma which shuts itself away and excuses the shortfalls. Yes - none of the characters are particularly likable - just rich kids doing rich-kid-things. But it sets out to be that and never tries do deceive you with anything else. But the ending has to be addressed and (I think) criticized. I'll compare it to the end of the movie "Bugsy Malone" whereby long conflicts and challenges seem to be resolved in the final ten minutes as everyone goes "Actually, let's not fight." and that's the end of it. The fire at the end (which let's face it, everyone who'd read the synopsis was building up for) seemed a bit comical and without consequence. All the characters' stupidity came to the fore at the same time but my point would be - it's in a controlled way, the author never lets the characters run away with it themselves. That's the sign of a good book I think. It's a smart author describing dumb people - that's the way to see it.