“Maybe our parents’ lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is is the temptation of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins. Or. Or maybe we are free the moment we’re born. Maybe everything we’ve ever done is by our own hands.”

Malibu Rising, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Summary

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 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.

My Thoughts

This was my third Taylor Jenkins Reid novel, and at this point she has established herself in my mind as an excellent author. I love her contemporary novels, and how creative she gets in structure. From the interview format of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo to the stitched together oral interviews of Daisy Jones and the Six, Malibu Rising, which takes place during one day, 7 AM to 7 AM, with occasional chapters flashing back to the past of the four siblings mother and father in the 1950s, is another smash hit. Nina, Jay, Hudson, and Kit are all vivid, well-written characters who stand out from each other. The main through-line is about them healing from different forms of trauma. Hudson and Jay’s secrets are intertwined. Kit is trying to figure out who she wants to be in the shadow of three famous siblings. And Nina is suffering not only from her husband abandoning her, but from years of eldest-daughter trauma that most Asian eldest-daughters can understand to some extent. The flashbacks to the past are heartbreaking at times but also beautiful—the story of how you can fall in love and have your heart broken time and time again. It’s a story of the weights of fame and how they can impact you, of how loving someone famous can impact you. 

The party at the end is vivid. Interspersed between moments between the siblings are new characters at this wild, debauched party reminiscent of scenes from The Great Gatsby—the party is a moment out of time, everyone discovering something new and finding freedom among Malibu and Hollywood elite. Not all the characters were fleshed out since we only met them for moments, but they didn’t need to be; it was about what they provided the narrative, the way they set the party environment in the head of the reader and made you feel like you were there, wandering the halls of Nina’s beachside mansion. The relationship between the siblings, throughout the book to the climax at the party, is incredibly strong. Through every struggle and secret, you can regardless tell that they love one another no matter what, that Nina is incredibly protective of all of them the same way all of them are protective of Kit. So much of the book is about the four of them, and how they deal with their family history and heritage. There’s a quote I love from the book: “Our parents live inside us, whether they stick around or not. They express themselves through us in the way we hold a pen or shrug our shoulders, in the way we raise our eyebrow. Our heritage lingers in our blood.”

The four siblings all have a strong relationship to surfing, often using it to bond; though honestly, at times I thought they could use less surfing and more therapy. Jay is a champion surfer, and Hudson photographs him. Nina is a swimsuit model who was found while surfing. I also struggle with the characterization of their mother, June Riva—though she is hardly present for a few chapters in the past, her story greatly impacts that of her children. At times, it felt as though she existed only in the context of her husband and father of her children, Mick Riva. Even when it came to her children, there were only moments when she was truly present for them as a good mother, and not as a hurt wife. It also felt like there were certain moments of the party thrown in for shock value, like the chapter about a woman who decides she is going to have a threesome completely in public before quitting her dream of becoming an actress, at which she is failing. 

Ultimately, this is not Reid’s best book. Both of her previous novels I have read, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six outrank this novel. But that is comparing an excellent novel against titans; it’s still a good book I would recommend reading, especially for someone who thinks they can relate to Nina—a parentified, exhausted eldest daughter who is learning to live for herself. A lot of the value in the book will come from how you can relate to the characters. I myself still found it to be incredibly enjoyable, and devoured the book. I will finish with a quote from Nina: “She knew it was up to her to say what had to be said. To do what had to be done. When there is only you, you do not get to choose which jobs you want, you do not get to decide you are incapable of anything. There is no room for distaste or weakness. You must do it all. All of the ugliness, the sadness, the things most people can’t stand to even think about, all must live inside of you. You must be capable of everything.”

Review: ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

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