Title: Malibu Rising

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Publisher: Ballantine Books 2021

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 384

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: MMD; Seasonal TBR

Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface.

I dove into this book really hoping for another Daisy Jones and the Six or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. With this book, we get a really good story, but it didn’t quite hit the 5 star mark for me. Right away, I was drawn into the world of early 1980s (and then 1950-60s) Malibu. I wanted to learn more about the Riva children and how they came to be at the places they were in their lives. I wanted to really submerse myself in the atmosphere of Malibu at the various time periods. We get some of that. In flashbacks, we get to see what happened with Mick and June and the snippets throughout the children’s lives. And we get one big final confrontation between Mick and his children. Unfortunately, the book the left me wanting more. When we get to the last chapter, I was just a bit taken aback at the abruptness of the ending. I felt like we were just getting into the meat of the various characters. I wanted to sit with them longer. Ultimately, I felt like nothing had really been resolved and I wanted more. I cannot deny that Reid writes a propulsive story with interesting characters. I just wanted more.

My two side annoyances:

• I really disliked how they dealt with Kit’s big identity revelation. Or really, how they didn’t deal with it. I felt like it was thrown to give a “complication” to her character, but was really a cheap afterthought.

• From the very first page, I thought the fire would figure more prominently into the story. I kept waiting and waiting and it didn’t come into fruition until the last chapter.

Next up on the TBR pile: