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I just finished Malibu Rising, and I'm overwhelmed with emotions. I laughed, I cried, and I come away feeling like the Riva family irrevocably touched my heart.

On its surface, there's nothing immediately special about this story. It's a tale of functional and dysfunctional relationships and families all wrapped up in the setting of a party, and it's been done many times before. Yet, Taylor Jenkins Reid infuses so much more into it. There's something about her characters, her writing, and her plot, some intangible quality that is more than the sum of its part. It draws me in and keeps me riveted from beginning to end.

I think your enjoyment of this book will depend largely on how much you can relate to the drama in here. For me, it rang true, and I was struck by how much I connected with so many different characters and their emotions. The search for love and belonging, the pressure to set aside your passions for familial obligations, the urge to love someone who can't always be there when you need them, it all cut deeply through me.

My one nitpick is that when we get to the actual party, there were too many side characters and it took a little bit away from the focus of the story. I'm not sure if we needed to know all of them, and their introduction and side-issues became a bit confusing and convoluted to me. But it's a pretty minor quibble overall.

I've read all of Reid's recent books and it seems like she can do no wrong. She has a real knack for taking a fluffy beach read and elevating it to an emotional height usually reserved for literary fiction, while still keeping me completely engrossed. I cannot wait to see what else she comes up with.

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See also, my thoughts on:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Carrie Soto Is Back
Daisy Jones & The Six
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This was a pick for my Book of the Month box. Get your first book for $5 .