Malibu Rising: A Novel

It’s the end of summer, 1983 in Malibu, California: time for the last days on the beach, the end of tourist season, the end of tourist season, and the annual bash thrown by a surfing family of local celebrities. But when that family’s secrets bubble up through the course of the day and the party, will it be the end of the celebration and that family’s bond? Taylor Jenkins Reid explores one family’s legacy in her 2021 novel, Malibu Rising.Malibu Rising follows the Riva siblings: bubbly surf supermodel Nina; cocky and suave pro surfer, Jay; Jay’s (sorta) twin and photographer, Hudson; and headstrong youngest child, Kit. As the summer of 1983 winds to a close, the entire town looks forward to the party to end all parties. It defines and reflects your social standing in town; no one in uninvited, but only those “in” enough to know about the party know its location. And this year’s party is at the palatial home that Nina shares with her pro tennis player husband. However, the family looks forward to the party as a distraction from issues both public and private. Nina’s husband has left her—very publicly—for a mercurial tennis pro. Jay has a health secret that could derail his surfing career. Hud has a secret love that would severely damage his relationship with Jay if it ever got out. And Kit secretly deals with figuring herself out while trying to be taken seriously as a surfer. The various dramas crash and roll over the course of a single day, as flashbacks delve into their collective childhood and the background of their parents: Malibu native, June, whose family ran a local seafood restaurant, and 60’s pop icon, Mick Riva. That rise-and-fall love story (tragically) plays out parallel to the main plot, and shows how these kids’ complex relationship with their parents still affect their lives.Taylor Jenkins Reid understands who her characters are, even better than they do, and it’s impressive and fun to see their relationships take shape over the course of the narrative. The siblings’ pack dynamic is effective and—coming from a large family, myself—feels realistic and familiar. Families are complicated and fickle things, and this one is handled beautifully. Also, the specter of their famous father looms large over their lives, even though his presence is sporadic at best. June Riva is a good parent in that she never actively spoke ill of her ex-husband, and that’s another thing that feels accurate. I enjoyed June and Mick’s tragic story, and the role it played in binding these people to one another. Lastly, I appreciate the effort to make this family, who are nearly revered by the locals, seem almost normal. They don’t care who their friends are, in the sense that some were famous, some were not, but everyone was who came to the party was welcomed. Little things like that make me thoroughly enjoy characters.I generally try to find something, a flaw or detail that I didn’t 100% love, to make the case that I’m being objective. Nothing is perfect, art least of all. I can’t find it in this one. It was marvelously executed and I loved it wire-to-wire, as I did with her previous book. What I can say (though with not the least bit of seriousness) is that I found out about an Easter egg from a previous book of hers, and now my completionist ass has to read that book to get the full, 100% understanding of Malibu Rising. Not cool, TJR.That said, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is on my 2022 reading queue. I’ll review that ASAP.Look, when the mind behind Daisy Jones & The Six puts out a new book, you buy and read the book. It’s that simple. Buy the damn thing.Pros: Strong family dynamic, fun plot, well-paced, fascinating character study.Cons: Reference to one of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s previous novels forces completionists to fork over more money for more brilliant writing, adding one more thing to an already overloaded TBR list.Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

This was the first work of Reid’s which I have read, being aware that she has been highly successful coming off the critical acclaim of 2017’s Evelyn Hugo and 2019’s Daisy Jones. First impressions are everything and when you stumble across such acclaim, it becomes inevitable to ask: what is the it-factor? That quality that makes an author be noticed and admirable in writing talent?You could arguably say that there is only one it-factor. If there is only one factor, then TJR has it. In one word, it is: voice.Reid has one of the most authoritative storytelling voices. And that authority allows her to achieve that one thing that I obsess over and value disproportionate to the tastes and opinions of other people: perfect pacing - or at least 9.9/10 type of pacing. Debating whether a novel is well-paced or too slow and sluggish is something I treat like a crusade when I pick up a book. It can have the best and most well-developed characters, the most interesting setting and plot premise, but if it moves like a snail or a cheetah then I will not want it. It will not be something that holds my attention.An authoritative voice is when the writer makes you pay attention to every page and every little incident, detail, and development. The details do not even have to be all that interesting or thematically deep. The capacity to enthrall a reader is almost separated from the actual events that are happening in the narrative. In other words, it is not the what that is important, it is the how . What you are describing or communicating to the reader is not as important as how you describe and communicate it. I appreciate when an author is committed to developing a unique and strong narrative voice.Malibu Rising is written to be enthralling. From the plot description to the pacing, it is itself obsessed with making the reader fully immersed in the narrative. Its mission: to never want you to close the book. The story follows 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 - in the town of Malibu, August 1983, as they are preparing to host their annual party of the year. Where the story begins early at 7 in the morning, we follow the build-up, chaos, and excitement of the subsequent twenty-four hours. In between, we also get glimpses into the stories of their parents: June and Mick Riva.I would say that the character of Mick Riva himself embodies what I mean when I say that Malibu Rising is intent on having you be obsessed with him. He is legendary, he garners all the attention in the room. But even then, he is not the sole star of the show. When a character appears halfway through the novel, previously mentioned only in conversation between characters and in passing at that, Reid only needs about two or three pages before their story appears significant and before they seem like the protagonist of their own stories. In this case, I was referring to the character - Brandon. He is Nina’s professional tennis player ex-husband and he is fully fleshed over the relatively short page-length where his story takes center stage. And the entire cast of characters are like that. All four siblings have their insecurities, flaws, strengths and weaknesses explored and built on. The people who are significant in their own lives receive their moments in the spotlight. Reid’s ability to efficiently characterize her cast considering the standard length of her novel is astounding. Part of the irony that this book is about the “biggest party of the year” in Malibu is that by efficiently exploring the lives of all the people who attended that party, even if they only appeared for half a dozen pages, the reader has this feeling that the scope of this party is large. It feels truly alive because of the reader’s knowledge and understanding of all the characters and what they are going through.And it worked. I loved those Riva kids. I was enraptured in the tumultuous love story of June and Mick Rivas. I was captivated by all of them as people. We see where they come from and where they go and Reid makes sure to deliver all the emotional catharsis necessary to make their stories feel meaningful. By the time we reach the concluding pages, I had this genuine sense that the characters at the start of the story were not the same by the end - for better or worse.I know some people did not like TJR’s insistence on giving attention to all the side characters. I understand that many did not fully buy into the emotional message and themes Reid tried to explore. I also do somewhat agree that the novel never becomes that complex and can come off as more of a melodramatic soap opera. However, I think that the attention and respect given to each of the central characters makes the eventual conflicts genuinely emotional, rather than contrived and overdramatic.There is something about TJR’s writing that is extraordinarily compelling. I hope to go back and read her other works because if they are anywhere as good as Malibu Rising , then this is an author I want to continue to follow.