Reviews - Malibu Rising | The StoryGraph

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53.2k reviews for:

Malibu Rising

Taylor Jenkins Reid

4.09 AVERAGE

erinsimmons's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

beheindbshjsnsn's review against another edition

4.0

This book covers a lot of ground, maybe too much ground. Yet it was unexpectedly charming, the characters reasonably well-developed despite having so many of them, and everyone knows I love a good party.

odairannies's review against another edition

4.0

"do you know how much a body can weigh when it falls into your arms, helpless? multiply it by three. nina carried it all. all of the weight, in her arms, on her back."

this isn't a review but a love letter to nina riva. an eldest sibling raising their youngest siblings while sacrificing their youth is genuinely one of my favourite — and one of the saddest — tropes ever. getting to see her put aside her own wishes and dreams, always prioritize her family and never herself, tolerating her degrading job was heartbreaking. she quickly became one of my dearly beloved book characters for simply how selfless, kind, loving, resilient, strong and beautiful she is.

this book is essentially the story of the riva family, how history can repeat itself and how you break the cycle. so that's why the second part bugs me a bit. i don't care about all these people that attended the party, what they wore, who they're with, cut it all out and go back to what’s truly important. i wish we could dig even deeper into the kids, their traumas and all that. i simply can never get enough of a one big messy family.

"i tried to finish the job. no, scratch that. i didn’t try to finish the job. i did finish the job. because look at them. they are all talented and smart and good—and, sure, we’re not perfect. but we have integrity."

close enough, welcome back fiona gallagher.

jessamesquivel's review against another edition

3.75

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

elliemurph_'s review against another edition

3.0

So sorry to all my fans who have been patiently waiting on this review!! (*cough* Lindsey *cough*) I had to let this book marinate for a bit before I decided what I wanted to write. I was really excited to read this book since I’ve loved the last two TJR books I’ve read this month. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t do it for me and I was left disappointed.

Malibu Rising is an easy and fairly entertaining read. However, I found the plot to be disjointed and rushed. Unlike some of her other novels, I found many of the POV’s in this book to be pointless and distracting from the plot of the main characters. Characters were introduced and given a history as if they were going to be relevant to the plot, and then they were never mentioned again? Their chapters would be left off at cliffhangers that seemed to be enticing the reader to keep going until their storyline picked back up, but this never happened. I thought this writing style was frustrating!!

For the main characters themselves, I found many of them to be unlikeable but they presented themselves as if they were the victimized good guy who nobody understood. Again, frustrating. The family dynamic felt forced and nobody actually seemed to communicate or to be happy, and yet everyone talked about their sibling dynamic as if it was the ideal.

If I had entered this book with fewer expectations, I honestly think I would have liked it more. The plot was quick-moving and I loved the main protagonist (Nina). Unfortunately, that didn’t happen as I read this book after completing TJR’s books about Evelyn Hugo and Carrie Soto. What can I say other than this book just didn’t quite measure up.

dldavis234's review against another edition

3.0

Very very slow in the first half but wrapped together nicely in the end. I found there to be too many characters and too many plots in the story. I prefer less and more dynamic plots such as the ones in her work with Evelyn Hugo, a much better book of hers.