Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

82 reviews

k8lynn's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abortion, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

baebushka's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This is one of those books where I feel like people have seen a completely different piece of writing than me... and, truthfully, it did not live up to the hype. I blame mainly TikTok for it.

I got over the characters all being assholes – I'm an asshole stan, if anything – but that still did not help me raise above my distaste for them. Let's take them in order: Daisy Jones is a Mary Sue; whatever other people work for their entire lives, she is good at naturally and whatever flaws she has they're written off as 'but that's just Daisy for ya!' and no one holds anything against her. Billy Dunne is a complex character and while I started the book wishing I would love him, I hated him more and more each time; when he stopped "cheating" on Camille with random groupies, he found Daisy and continued to cheat on his wife emotionally for the entirety of the book. Graham Dunne is a pro-lifer and defended his brother's cheating repeatedly. Warren Rhodes has no personality, he's just there to wash off any other character's sins. Karen Sirko was probably the most interesting character and she still covered Billy's cheating from Camilla – whom she called her friend. Eddie Loving made the most sense to me and I'm 99% sure it's because we both hated Billy. Camilla Dunne... truly, I want to like her; but she tolerated Billy's cheating and "rock star" lifestyle a bit too much for my taste.

This book deals with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and a poor life style – yet, not for a second does it affect any of the character's memories? They all seem to have perfect memories of what went down, even when Daisy SPECIFICALLY says she was high out of her mind. These subjects were treated lightly and from a distant place – addiction should not be treated as such, in my opinion.

Let's move on to the promise of the book: what happened after that Chicago concert that dispelled the band? Nothing major. The only major thing I can point out is the split between Karen and Graham, but the rest? What, Daisy realising she has to get clean? Billy almost relapsing? The two of them realising that they were almost in love with each other? Whatever scandal I imagined this book was going to set me up for, I didn't think it delivered.

FINALLY, and what irked me most, was the god-fucking-awful Taylor Jenkins Reid plot twist. I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo prior to this and didn't enjoy the plot twist about Monique, but this? GOD! Reading that Julia is the one conducting the interview... was that necessary? And after that, you find out Camilla leaves her an email, asking her DAUGHTER to send her FATHER to hook up with Daisy? No. Absolutely not.

Reading that instantly made me forget that this book was basically a bunch of Tumblr quotes with context built around them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Eating disorder

Minor: Body shaming, Cancer, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

snipinfool's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I read this book because it was a DNF from a couple of years ago and I needed to try a DNF again for a book challenge. The first time, I listened to the audiobook version. This time, I read the e-book. If this had not been a challenge I wanted to complete, I would have DNFed it again. I still do not understand the high ratings on this book. Only two of the characters were likable to me. Warren was ok, but he was so overshadowed by the others that he might as well not have been in the book. Simone was a wonderful friend to Daisy and one I wished she had listened to sooner. Unfortunately, Simone’s character only makes brief appearances because she was not part of the band’s story. I wanted to feel something for Daisy because her childhood was so terrible, but as she got older, I was just bored with her character. She was one note, just a hot mess most of the time. Billy was an egotistical musical talent who pushed everyone around to get his way. Right now, I am past my limit of self-centered men who push people around. The rest of the band blended into the background unless they had some crisis and once resolved, returned to the shadows. I thought maybe the audiobook was the reason I DNFed this the first time, but it was not. Reading 369ish pages of almost straight interview style writing was fatiguing and boring for me. I love memoirs, fictional or not, but why was this the chosen writing style? I made it through to the end, but I wish I had spent the time reading something else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Abortion and Injury/Injury detail

kjm19's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Daisy jones & the six is an emotional read, once you can get beyond the setting that you’ve seen dozens of times. It does feel too real at times with the documentary style, where the author has essentially plucked out a real band and situation and re-written it with other names and dates. However, it’s a nice easy time. 

It’s interesting hearing about all of these people with dreams and everything gets tangled with love and drugs and their relationships with themselves and how those aspects just make it impossible… How all of these people fall together and then have no choice but to walk away in spite of what they want and what they could have all together. It’s heartbreaking in some ways, but reassuring that you’re not the only one going through life as a victim of circumstance. It’s a human experience and we’re all humans (even rockstars). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, and Gaslighting

leannanecdote's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abortion, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

sierrabowers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

After reading Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by the same author, I am absolutely a Jenkins Reid fan! This book was similar to the other book and reminded me of A Star is Born at the same time. I couldn’t put this down! Will be watching the tv show soon!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Grief, Stalking, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol

malerivero's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abortion, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

ambercunningham's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Abortion, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

crystalvyces's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.25

This book is clearly for boring white girls who dream of home wrecking a famous persons life. If that’s you then yeah this books for you. Boring characters and plot and it goes nowhere it’s like a sad list of white people bullshit and facts. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

miagic_tome's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Absolutely devoured this book. TJR has a way of developing complex characters that I don’t see often and it’s very apparent in this book. Loved the ups and down that everyone went though and would love to reread with the added context of

Julie being the interviewer/author of the book.

Very fun and quick read with many emotions in between, would definitely recommend, but look at content warning just in case. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, and Gaslighting

Minor: Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, and Pregnancy