Malibu Rising

This books follows a dual time line, one in the 80's focusing on Mick Rivas kids: Nina, Kit, Hud and Jay, and them preparing for Nina's famous end of the summer party. The other time line goes back to the 50s and slowly but surly reaches the “present” 80s timeline. In this one we find out Mick Riva's background story: how he became became famous, we get an insight on his relationship with his wife and kids and lastly, discover how his kids became famous as well.

I was a little disappointed in this one because the way the summary was worded it seemed like something tragic was going to happen at Nina's summer party. So, the build up was very intense and I was gripped from the start, until well.. the “big” thing came and went in a blink of an eye. So to me the ending was very “meh”. One other thing I wasn't a huge fan of, was that during the chapters of Nina's party there were far too many pages dedicated to characters that didn't really interact with the siblings so I didn't really care for them as they were pretty irrelevant to me. So during those parts I was a bit bored, I understand that the maybe the author wanted the party to feel full and wanted to give the reader more insight to the type of people who where there, but I just didn't really care. However, the rest of this book was really great. Loved how it was written, I read this in two days and I'm a very slow reader, but it flowed beautifully. It was surprisingly gripping cos I'm nosy and wanted to know the siblings secrets and what happened in their family dynamic. And boy is there a lot of drama... June, the kids mom, deserved so much better. I swooned with her when she first met Mick, and then my heart also got shattered. I just wanted to go inside this book and give her a hug, and then her kids, especially Nina, a hug as well.

If you've read the seven of husbands of Evelyn Hugo and liked it then chances are you'll like this one as well. It has the same old Hollywood feel that Evelyn Hugo has plus some little easter eggs as well, being that Mick Riva is one of her husbands. As always, the characters feel SO real, I left the book feeling like I have met these characters personally. Also recommend if you like family dramas and reading about famous people with a whole lot of issues. This is a perfect summer read, it's so atmospheric that I felt as if I were on a beach in Malibu under the warm summer sky, even though I read this during cold and rainy days.