Malibu Rising

 

Malibu Rising

By Taylor Jenkins Reid

A couple of weeks ago, I wandered into Goodwill…the kind of casual stop that somehow always feels fated. I made my usual beeline for the book section and walked out with five. One of them is already set aside as a gift.

This year, Vee and I decided to do something different for our birthdays: thrifted bundles. We built a secret Pinterest board together, filling it with bits of who we are…ideas, aesthetics, little clues. The only rule is that everything must be found, collected, or handmade. Treasures, really. It’s been the most meaningful and surprisingly joyful way I’ve ever put together a gift. Spoiler Vee...I found you a book! 

Among the stack I found that day was Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. As you know, I had finished Atmosphere, and I’d already loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six, so it felt like an easy yes.

“Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.”

Set along the Pacific Coast Highway, tucked between mountain and sea, Malibu Rising tells the story of the Riva family. On the surface, it’s all sunshine and salt air...beach houses, crashing waves, that golden Malibu glow. But underneath, there’s more going on: wealth gaps, the way Malibu’s identity has shifted over time, and the subtle impact of gentrification. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the homes themselves…from the original Riva house, full of memory and survival, to Nina’s stark, modern house on the coast. The contrast feels intentional. These spaces aren’t just settings; they’re reflections of history, of relationships, of what is built and what is lost.

The center of the novel belongs to the siblings: Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit, whose loyalty to one another feels steady and earned. There’s something quietly striking in the way they’ve all had to grow up too fast, stepping into maturity while their parents remained suspended in their own immaturity. It’s a familiar kind of imbalance, and Reid captures it with clarity, if not always with subtlety.

That said, parts of the story do drift into slightly soap-opera territory. The backdrop of 1983 is vivid…Virginia Slims and Marlboros, Tab cans, Jeeps and Jaguars, Airstream caravans, Wayfarer sunglasses. Long sun-lightened hair, string bikinis, tanned skin. Crop tops and Daisy Dukes. Backyard parties that blur into excess…booze, cocaine, fleeting love affairs, and the kind of chaos that feels both glamorous and empty.  Rock stars, actors, athletes, models…it’s all there, orbiting Los Angeles in a way that feels true to the time, even if it’s a bit over the top at moments.

The story moves between two timelines: one that follows the hours leading up to Nina’s annual party, building tension as it goes, and another that traces the family’s past…particularly June Riva, a woman who loved deeply and paid for it. Her story, more than anything, carries the emotional weight of the book. She is the quiet center of it all: a young woman who believed in promises, endured abandonment, and still faced the world with resilience.

And then there’s Mick Riva…he showed up in Reid’s other books too. A famous singer, charming and careless, he moves through lives leaving damage in his wake. He’s less someone you try to understand and more someone you just must reckon with.

“Nina understood, maybe for the first time, that letting people love you and care for you is part of how you love and care for them.”

That line sticks. It’s one of the moments where the book sharpens into something more meaningful…where it moves beyond the spectacle and into truth.

Malibu Rising is good. But it certainly isn’t her best. It doesn’t quite reach the depth or emotional precision of her other work. And yet, there was something about it that stayed with me.

Maybe it’s because it’s Malibu.

A place that has always felt like a dream just out of reach. My friend David and I used to talk about living there someday. I like to think he’s there now in some way…catching waves, laughing, exactly where he belongs. This book, for all its flaws, let me go back there for a bit. It gave me the coast, surfing, the light, the sense of possibility….and my memories of him.

For that, I really loved it.