Q: What is your anticipated summer read?
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Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
#arcreview
Pub date: 6/1/21
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Do you think you are destined to repeat your parents’ mistakes? To live their lives or can you break the vicious cycle and venture out and have your own life outside their norm.

June and Mick met when they were young and fell in love in the 1950s. He felt she completed him and they were perfect for eachother and then his singing career took off. Out on the road the temptation of women was overpowering and he eventually said yes and this side of fame bothers me. (I mean fans know these men and women are married but they throw themselves at them hoping to be the next wife or husband. It’s so gross but it happens.) He already had a bad parental arrangement where his father cheated and his mom took him back eventually, so he expected the same. Does this excuse his behavior? Absolutely not! Does he expect it to? Absolutely!
The family dynamics from their marriage through their having children and his illegitimate children and divorces, weddings, it was so real but it so broke my heart. The writing was so amazing. I just wanted something great to happen for June and Nina the two that ended up being responsible. But there was so much on their shoulders and so much heartbreak with no hope for the happy ending it was too much.
The ending felt like a big fat No I will not repeat my mothers mistakes. I will not have the defeated life of a cheated on spouse that will not define me! And it shouldn’t but in the celebrity world it really does. Why do we love to watch them fall and buy all those gossip rags?

This book really did bust my heart apart and it made me sad, cry and feel hopeless for a while and really sad for a family that could’ve been so happy but for a carousing father that ruined it all. I absolutely loved the siblings! Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit!! I loved their camaraderie and when it got really bad they were able to keep going because Nina was their rock. Being the oldest must be hard!!

Also, the author’s note at the end made me cry what she said to her daughter. It was so vulnerable being a mommy to someone is so fun but being a mother is stressful. You are doing great!

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

Thank you net galley and ballantine books for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

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Synopsis:

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 bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.