Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviewed by Kristin

Nina Riva has taken care of her younger siblings for years. Their father is actor Mick Riva, still turning heads after decades on the screen. Mick has always been full of big promises but short on follow throughs. His wife June did what she could when Mick abandoned her with four children, but Nina was truly the one making sure everyone got to school and had something to eat.

Now a world famous model and surfer, Nina has been the only true parent of Jay, Hud, and Kit. She is the one who cared for her siblings, forged their permission slips, and helped them grow up into successful adults. Jay is a professional surfer winning competitions around the world. The quiet one—Hud—is an amazing photographer, following his brother and becoming known. Kit is the baby of the family, also a surfer, and is working hard on figuring out exactly who she is and what she wants to do with her life.

The main action of Malibu Rising takes place in the 24 hours following 7:00 am, August 27, 1983. The famous Riva party is that night, and all characters come together in this time period with varying motivations and agendas. This annual end of summer bash has grown over the years from more humble beginnings to this star studded gathering where the famous are rubbing shoulders (or doing lines of coke) with working class locals. There are no official invitations. If you know where the party is, you are invited.

Flashbacks take the reader backwards from 1983 to 1956 and many points in between. The tension remains high as the history of various characters is revealed, all while leading inexorably forward to a fiery conclusion.

Reid is brilliant in drawing dozens of little plot lines going all directions, and then pulling them taut. The author has created this world of the 1970s and 1980s in a way that made me think she was older, but I checked—she is only 38. Her other novels usually have some characters in common, but just as a tiny strand to connect her landscapes. Mick Riva played a large part here, but he was just a small part as the third husband in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Mick also made a brief showing in Daisy Jones & The Six. A few musicians from Daisy even make their way to Nina’s party, giving just a hint of the great fictional world Reid has created.

This book kept me wanting more, and it’s good to know that Reid is still creating and developing tangential characters, and that we might even see a few old favorites in passing in her future works. Tennis pro Carrie Soto comes up in the first few pages of Malibu, as the “other woman” Nina’s husband has taken up with. Carrie Soto is Back is Reid’s newest book, and I’m on the waiting list.