Amazon.co.uk:Customer reviews: Malibu Rising: The Sunday Times Bestseller

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 June 2021

I loved Daisy Jones & the Six, and liked Evelyn Hugo.
Malibu Rising is sadly not as good as either even though there's a lot to love in here.
I think the main problem is that it is under-developed and sort of half-written. A couple more drafts and some editing, re-arranging and cutting would have elevated this novel to the standard this author is capable of.
It feels as if her publisher might have rushed her into print too soon. Or her editor blew smoke up her posterior & told her it was fantastic when it was still a work in progress.
I think this author is incredibly talented and I will read her next one and I'm not sorry I read Malibu Rising it's just not what it should have been.

25 people found this helpful

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Malibu deflating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 August 2021

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I'm not much of a one for beach reads - but recently I had a yearning for the good old days of Jilly Cooper/Jackie Collins/Shirley Conran. I'd say it's a good 20 years since I've last read one of those types of lively, tawdry, fun, escapist page-turners. I thought, from the Hype, Malibu Rising would be in a similar vein. It's most definitely not. This is probably the most boring book I've read in a long time. I mean, it takes some doing to write a novel, set in Malibu, about the rich/famous/beautiful people and to make it so uninspiring and droll. All the characters were pretty one-dimensional and there was sooo much telling and a lack of showing.

The novel flits back and forth between the night in question - when the annual Riva party takes place - and the early years of the siblings' (Kit, Hud, Jay and Nina) lives and the relationship between their rock-icon father Mick and their mother June. It's all very dull - I had to force myself to keep reading, hoping it would pick up and get better.

As for the party itself, at that point a lot of unlikable characters are introduced very briefly and quickly - after all, the author needed people to populate the party with. But they're cardboard cutout characters - there as space-fillers (literally) and the reader can't care about them because they're unimportant and their time in the spotlight of the novel brief. One example is a mini-story (literally covering a couple of pages) about a guest called Eliza and how she'd like a certain type of man but decided not to stay at the party but go home and read a script (who cares - she's not relevant to the novel) - and here's an example of the frustrating style of writing. We're told 'And so, she did not go inside. Instead, she hung out in the front yard, talking to her friends. And Seth hung out in the backyard, looking for love'. It's written with the type of gravity you might reserve for characters who are the focal point of a novel - star-crossed lovers who might later meet. But nah, Eliza has a few pages and that's it. Like I say, filler material - and not even good filler. Or this - where an actor at the party is introduced: 'Back in high school in Dayton, Ohio, Robert Vaughn Donovan III did not make the football or the baseball team. But the moment he stepped into the school auditorium, he had found a home. With his quick wit and charmingly exasperated delivery of almost every line, he had the drama kids in stitches. His dad's college roommate...' Actually, I won't bore you with the rest. But all this setup for someone at a party who does nothing at all - who has no role in driving the overall plot forward - frustrated me as a reader.

This novel lacks plot, pacing, interesting characters. It's a slow amble across the years, repeatedly flagging up how nice Nina is, how errant Mick is - and it's all tell, tell tell. It's not even titillating. Barely any sex scenes and when there were, they were brief, boring and pretty chaste.

If you are looking for a summer bonk-buster or even a summer page-turner, this book isn't it. It doesn't even feel like it's written by someone who has any insider knowledge of the LA set. I've read that the author used to be a casting agent - but it doesn't feel like she's been close to celebrity or has any interesting stories; unlike Jackie Collins who was clearly close to all the gossip, scandal and sizzle and conveyed every ounce of it in her books. Honestly, what a damp squib of a novel this was.

18 people found this helpful

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Helsy_1983

Not the Summer page turner I had hoped.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2021

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Felt like I was losing brain cells reading this. Poor writing, bland storyline, basic characters, I struggled to even pick it and read it to be truthful. Not the Summer page turner I was hoping for.

21 people found this helpful

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read-along-with-sue

Much depth than you think

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2021

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For me, I didn’t enjoy Daisy Jones & the six.
I’m unpopular with my opinion I know.

But this book took me by surprise. What I thought it was going to be (like a Jackie Collins novel) with horrid little rich people sniping at each other and Botox lol….turned out to be nothing of the sort.

This had a lot of depth to it.

Grief.
Loss of a parent in death and a father who couldn’t handle fatherhood.
Yes, they had money, but they worked for it.

The eldest daughter made sacrifices.

The family dynamics were intense and I loved every word and shocked myself that I enjoyed it so much.

I only read it thinking I needed an escape from thrillers, maybe a nice summer read. What I got was much more.

So maybe I’ll give her yet another chance when she brings her next book out!

14 people found this helpful

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Suse

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 June 2021

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I loved Daisy Jones & The Six so was excited to order this new novel from the author. Unfortunately it was a let down. The family story was pretty boring, the characters were fairly bland, the build up to the big party was flimsy and the main event itself was a non-event, IMO. I was hoping for so much more but it did not deliver.

13 people found this helpful

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kay

A family saga

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 December 2021

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There’s something of the family saga about this book all centred on Nina an eldest daughter and her siblings and the absence of Mick Riva their narcissistic celebrity father.
For those of you who did not live in pre #metoo times, the 80s when this novel is set, were a time when women began to realise how big their struggle to be equally included and valued both as caregivers and in their professional lives actually was. We put up with hepeating, mansplaining and men assuming they could casually take liberties with our bodies with outward calmness while cringing and seething inside. We see this lived through Nina as she becomes a surfing sex symbol while sublimating her professional surfing goals in an attempt to keep her family of siblings together.
This was a time when we knew we had to find a voice to change the status quo. Jenkins Reid tells this subtly and perfectly through Nina and her siblings.
This was also a time when Malibu was transitioning from being a beach shack surfing paradise to a privatised beach town for the rich and famous and it comes alive in the story. In Covid times, it made me want to sail into the sun, dive into the sea and never come back home to a cold winter.
It starts with the fire and brings us back to the fire. All politics, history and worthiness aside, it is richly told and plotted.
It is not my favourite of her books but I still really liked it and can recommend it for a lazy weekend read.

4 people found this helpful

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Caroline

Perfect, Hedonistic summer read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 August 2021

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The writing of Taylor Jenkins Reis feels refreshing and unique. Whether it is the journalistic interview style found in Daisy Jones or the memoir feel of Evelyn Hugo. Malibu Rising is told in the form of flashback between the life of Mick Riva and his first wife, June, specifically June and contrasted with the Riva Siblings party. This is a great technique as I found myself with a feeling of dread as it looks as if the sins of the father will be visited on the children - especially Nina.

Nina has taken on the mantle previously worn heavily by her mother - taking care of the siblings and running a restaurant that she never wanted as well as being 'good'. Nina is hurtling towards the same bad life choices made by her mother about the men in their lives - namely a cheating, feckless husband who had a very public affair. The flashback style bringing this into sharp focus.

The other siblings have their own issues - Jay is ill, Hud in a relationship he is forced to keep secret and Kit is growing up and learning more about who she is. Kit's story particularly is well written and sensitively done.

The main event - namely the party is fantastic. Hedonistic, drugs, sex and alcohol. Characters come in and throw off all responsibility and expectation. And as events come to a close there is a feeling of guests having one enormous blowout before going back to real life. Burn everything to the ground and rise from the ashes, both literally and metaphorically.

There are themes around nature having the ultimate power - the power to heal, to burn and to kill. Sometimes we genuinely have no control of our wider world. Malibu is described as a tinderbox awaiting just one spark to make it burn.

The novel is evocative of the time and Malibu in the early 1980s. It's beautifully written with a very satisfying conclusion. Taylor Jenkins Reid is becoming a real power house of an author and one whose writing I continue to love.

4 people found this helpful

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Travels.along.my.bookshelf

Sun drenched, deliciously twisting and cathartic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 August 2021

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Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book takes us through 24 hours in 1983 - the day of the infamous Riva family party. Everyone wants an invite to see the famous Riva siblings from Malibu - there is so much fascination about them. There are flashbacks to the families past to show how they get to this point, where the decisions and consequences reach a tipping point and lead to a fire and the party lurching out of control.

‘𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁, 𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹.’

Nina Riva is famous in her own right but part of a famous family, daughter of a legendary singer, Wife of a tennis pro -she is defined by who she is related to, not by who she is.
June is a naive 50’s housewife, and Nina’s mother, not a hair out of place, at home waiting for Mick her famous husband. It’s not all glamour, real life always rears it head, life isn’t perfect even when you are rich.

‘𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗹. 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗻. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻.’

This is a story of family and relationships, how we muddle along, the lies that get told, the ripples they cause shaping who we are.
I liked the 50’s flashback setting, I can feel the sunshine and hear the sea transporting me to the beach and I love the contrast with the modern day Malibu.

‘𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗯𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿….𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁, 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁.’

Ninas life seems to mirror her mother June’s. Both with glamorous men, both left by them and both take them them back with disastrous consequences.
They are family women, love their families, are protectors trying to shield them from harm but ultimately harming themselves. The story really shows that we are our families and our histories, there may be echoes from the past visible in us but you can make what you want of yourself.

‘𝗜 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳.’

This is sun drenched book, you can feel the salty sand between your toes and is a really great beach read with flawed characters who you cannot help but root for.
There are so many bombshells! So many secrets and is deliciously twisting and addictive, but has so much deep emotion too. It is a catharsis.

Loved it and I now need to read more by this author!

✩✩✩✩

One person found this helpful

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Zoe

Dysfunctional Riva family saga

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 July 2022

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This is a story about the dysfunctional Riva family. Where history seems to repeat itself. The story moves seamlessly from past to the present day, from character to character. From glamour, fame and glitz to broke and barely surviving. It reads on a vein of a family saga where each member brings there, somewhat, messed up lives to the party where everything crashes around them.

I enjoyed the build up to the party and getting to know the characters. The party, not as much, there were too many characters added to the mix and not a great deal is known about them. I think less is more in this case.

But that said I did enjoy reading this book and intrigued to know more about Carrie Soto, from her next book, who has a small part in this book. There was also a mention of Celia St James from Evelyn Hugo. I do love crossover characters.

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Helena Halme Author

Highly enjoyable read and much recommended!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 July 2021

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed reading his novel. I liked the way the story took you back and forth between the 1950s and 80s, telling the story of Mick Riva, the legendary pop star, his wife June, and their four children.

Nina, a sought-after model and the eldest of the Riva children, is the selfless mother figure to her surfer siblings, the reason of which is slowly revealed as the story spans the different eras. We follow her as she prepares for her annual party, attended by everyone who's anyone.

The glamorous setting of Malibu immediately draws you into the story, as does the more innocent era of the 1980s (or was it just more ignorant and cruel?). Anyone of a certain age will recognize the casual sexism and the not-so unintentional discrimination of anyone outside the norm.

My only slight criticism of Malibu Rising is the number of characters attending the party, brought in late in the book. It became highly confusing to know who was who. I wonder if this was intentional, to reflect the chaos of the celebrity bash? If so, I can see why this is necessary, but I think the number could have been cut – or their stories could have been told earlier in the novel.

However, the emotional journeys the grown-up Riva children, especially the selfless Nina, take in the book is beautifully told. Highly enjoyable read and much recommended!

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5 star		46%
4 star		34%
3 star		15%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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