In Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid crashes a wave of longing, loss, and legacy onto the California coast – delivering a story that simmers with heat, heartbreak, and the ache of family ties that won’t quite snap. It’s golden-hour nostalgia, wrapped in the salt of unsaid things, and it burns slow – then all at once.
From the fractured fame of Daisy Jones to the aching glamour of Evelyn Hugo, Reid has mastered the art of storytelling as excavation: peeling back glittering surfaces to reveal the bruises beneath. Here, she does it again – trading stadiums and stardom for surfboards and siblings, and capturing one day, one fire, and one family – all on the brink.
📖 Quick Overview
Malibu Rising – Taylor Jenkins Reid
August, 1983, it is the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone who is anyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: surfer and supermodel Nina, brothers Jay and Hud, and their adored baby sister Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over – especially as the children of the legendary singer Mick Riva.
By midnight the party will be completely out of control.
By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames.
But before that first spark in the early hours of dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family will all come bubbling to the surface.
📌 TL;DR
A tender, turbulent family saga wrapped in surf culture and simmering secrets. Atmospheric, emotionally sharp, and devastatingly human.
💥 Hook
“Our family histories are more than what we inherit – they’re what we choose to carry forward.”
💬 The Big Idea
What does it mean to belong to a family that’s splintered you? Reid explores how love survives abandonment, how we build ourselves from ruins, and what burns when we finally stop pretending we’re fine.
🧠 What’s it About?
In Malibu Rising, four famous siblings – Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit Riva – prepare for their legendary annual party in 1983 Malibu. But beneath the glossy surfaces, each is silently unravelling: secrets, heartbreaks, betrayals – and one father whose shadow looms large. The story alternates between the day of the party and the Rivas’ history, building toward a literal and emotional firestorm that changes everything.
🔍 Why It’s More Than Just the Blurb
This isn’t just a summer beach read – it’s a love letter to survival. Reid turns the party into a crucible, burning down façades and forcing every character to face who they are when they stop performing. Each storyline – sibling, parent, lover, self – is layered with grief, grace, and grit.
🏄♀️ Surfer girl realism: You can feel the sand in your teeth. Reid’s Malibu is vibrant, physical, lived-in.
💔 Sibling stories that cut deep: Not just love – loyalty, resentment, duty, and rage. It’s messy and unforgettable.
🔥 One-night structure, big emotional payoff: The 24-hour frame makes everything urgent. And explosive.
🌊 Mick Riva as mythology: He’s not just their absent father – he’s a stand-in for all the promises that fame makes and fails to keep.
🧠 Multigenerational emotional DNA: You see how abandonment and desire ripple through decades – how June, their mother, haunts every chapter even long after she’s gone.
🔍 Deep Dive
Let’s dig into what’s going on beneath the surface—without spoiling anything.
📚 What’s Inside? (Spoiler-Free Breakdown)
Nina: The eldest daughter who became a mother when her mother couldn’t. She’s fierce and fragile – a woman everyone leans on, but no one really sees. Her arc – from duty to liberation – is a quiet triumph.
Jay: A pro surfer with golden-boy energy and aching vulnerability. Caught between glory and guilt.
Hud: The artist, the peacekeeper – and the keeper of a secret that might ruin everything. His stillness is the eye of the storm.
Kit: The youngest, aching to break free of everyone’s expectations – and finally learning who she is, beyond the “baby” of the family.
June: The mother whose love turned to drowning. Her story is told in flashbacks, but her presence is everywhere.
Mick Riva: The patriarch you’ll love to hate – emblematic of fame’s rot, all surface and selfishness. He’s less a man, more a legacy of damage. (And if you’ve read Evelyn Hugo, you’ll recognize the echoes.)
Full Review By Jasmine
★ ★ ★ ★
From the moment the waves start rolling in on page one, Malibu Rising pulls you under — not with a splash, but with a slow, powerful current you can’t escape. Taylor Jenkins Reid has once again proven her gift for weaving emotional realism into larger-than-life stories. This isn’t just a novel about surfers or celebrity scandals or a party that ends in flames. It’s about belonging, about what we inherit and what we choose to carry, about how family can both wound you and hold you together.
And it moves with such perfect pacing — not rushed, not dragging, just steadily building heat like the late-August sun over a Malibu cliff.
🌊 Like Reading a Tabloid — But Tender
Reid’s writing in Malibu Rising feels like a sun-bleached magazine spread brought to life — not the plastic kind, but one of those rare, timeless pieces where the photographs are faded and candid and everyone’s smiling a little too hard. There’s glamour here, yes, but it’s never shallow. The story dips between past and present, between the rise of Mick Riva (yes, that Mick Riva) and the inner lives of his children decades later, culminating in a wild, unforgettable party in 1983.
There’s this gorgeous contrast between the glitter and the ache — between the surfboards and the sorrow, the strobe lights and the secrets. Reid knows how to write fame, how to expose the rot underneath the perfect smile. But she also knows how to make you feel everything beneath the surface.
🔥 The Women Carry This Story (As Always)
Let’s just say it: Taylor Jenkins Reid writes women like nobody else.
In Malibu Rising, the emotional core is Nina Riva — model, surfer, reluctant socialite, and the kind of eldest daughter who shoulders everyone’s pain without ever asking for help. Her arc is beautifully powerful — not loud, not dramatic, but real. The quiet heartbreak of responsibility, the slow burn of deciding to finally choose herself — it hit so hard.
And then there’s Kit, who is electric and honest and so refreshingly full of yearning. Her arc is treated with subtlety but meaning, in true TJR fashion — she’s figuring things out in real time as a part of growing up and stepping into her skin.
The brothers, Jay and Hud, are real standouts too — each with their own distinct personality and struggles that add rich layers to the family dynamic. You truly feel for them as they navigate their roles within the Riva clan. Jay and Hud bring heart, humor, and complexity that balance the story beautifully. They’re flawed and sometimes frustrating, but also deeply human and important to the fabric of the family.
🌀 A Family Saga With Sand In Its Teeth
The family dynamics are what make this book shine. The Riva siblings don’t just love each other — they survive with each other. Their bond feels unshakable even when it’s fraying. There’s so much history in the way they speak, the way they fight, the way they instinctively protect one another. It’s tender, messy, fierce.
Reid’s signature gift is on full display here: creating characters who feel so fully human that you forget they’re not real. You root for them. You hurt for them. You feel like you grew up with them — surfing beside them at Point Dume, sitting at Nina’s kitchen table, watching the smoke rise from that fateful party with your heart in your throat.
🎉 The Party’s Not Just a Plot Device — It’s a Reckoning
The second half of the book, set over one wild, spiraling night, is where things explode — emotionally and literally. The party is chaotic, cinematic, and deeply symbolic. It’s not just a rager with 80s glam and bad decisions — it’s where years of silence, shame, secrets, and longing come undone. Each chapter feels like a match being lit, until the whole thing goes up in flames. And the payoff? Completely satisfying.
The tension between past and present makes the reveal of what burns — and who walks away changed — all the more poignant.
🏄♀️ Carrie Soto, Cameos, and TJR’s Expanding Universe
If you’ve read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Carrie Soto Is Back, you’ll recognize a few familiar names (and egos). Mick Riva, the absentee father and crooner heartthrob, is a connecting thread between the books — and Carrie Soto herself makes a brief but potent appearance in Malibu Rising before headlining her own novel.
But don’t worry — you don’t need to read the others to enjoy this one. Reid builds a shared universe that’s rich for fans but never exclusive. Each story stands strong on its own, with its own themes and atmosphere.
👋 Final Thoughts
Malibu Rising is a novel about fire and water, about what breaks and what stays, about how sometimes we have to let everything burn in order to rise from the ashes.
It may not be my personal favorite of Reid’s novels (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo still owns my heart), but it’s impossible not to love this one. The pacing is excellent, the characters feel lived-in and real, and the emotional undercurrents pull you in deeper than you expect. There’s pain here, and joy, and the kind of quiet triumph that lingers.
And once again, Taylor Jenkins Reid reminds us that women don’t just survive the wreckage — they rebuild from it, stronger than ever.
🎭 Mood & Matchmaker
Think Big Little Lies meets The Summer I Turned Pretty, but make it Reid-core: glossy, gorgeous, devastating.
🌈 Vibes Check
What kind of vibe are you in for? Let’s break it down:
✍️ Writing Style: Clean, cinematic, emotionally rich
📅 Tension Level: Slow-build to inferno
👨👩👧👦 Family Feels: High – think found family, fractured family, healing family
🏳️🌈 Queer Rep: Subtle, hopeful, and beautifully handled
🔥 Drama Factor: Soaked in tension, but always character-first
🔄 Mood Matches
If you liked…
📘 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – for fame and the cost of it
📘 Little Fires Everywhere – for quiet women finally exploding
📘 The Paper Palace – for family, secrets, and summer heat
…then you’ll fall hard for Malibu Rising.
🖋️ Love character-driven stories with emotional depth?
Explore more literary fiction that dives into family, identity, and the quiet moments that shape us.
👉 Browse Literary Fiction Reads
🧃 Emotional Map
🌅 Atmospheric nostalgia – 9/10
💔 Family pain – 10/10
🔥 Personal transformation – 8/10
🏄♀️ Malibu vibes – 10/10
🎇 Party chaos – 10/10
🧨 Catharsis – 11/10
🎯 For the Right Reader
If you crave:
- A novel that’s about people, not just plot
- Emotionally rich character arcs
- Books that feel like watching a whole season of prestige TV
- Found-family dynamics and quiet revelations
- Women who say enough and mean it
…then Malibu Rising will sweep you under, then spit you out stronger.
🧭 Where I Found It
After reading several Taylor Jenkins Reid books and loving them all, I obviously had to read more of her books!
💡 Extra Curiosities
Got some quick questions about blank? Here are a few things readers often wonder about the blank:
What is the book Malibu Rising about?
Malibu Rising is a family drama set over the course of one intense day and night in 1983 Malibu, following the famous Riva siblings—Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit—as they prepare for their legendary annual summer party. Behind the glamour and sun-drenched setting, each of them is carrying the weight of personal struggles, secrets, and unresolved pain stemming from their childhood and their absent father, Mick Riva (a recurring character in TJR’s universe).
As the night unfolds and tensions reach their breaking point, the story flashes between past and present—revealing how their family fell apart and how each sibling is trying to piece together their identity in the aftermath. By morning, their mansion will have gone up in flames—both literally and emotionally.
It’s a story about family, fame, abandonment, forgiveness, and the burning need to finally choose your own path.
Is there LGBT representation in Malibu Rising?
Yes! There is queer representation in Malibu Rising. While it’s not the main focus of the book, it’s handled thoughtfully and adds another layer to the themes of identity and freedom that run through the story. It includes a subtle but important coming-to-terms journey with sexuality, which is explored gently and without trauma, more as a quiet realization and step toward self-discovery.
Do I need to read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo before Malibu Rising?
Nope! You absolutely don’t need to read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo first. Malibu Rising is a standalone novel, and it works perfectly on its own.
That said, if you have read Evelyn Hugo, you might notice a little crossover in the form of Mick Riva, a character who appears briefly in both books. But it’s more of a fun Easter egg than a requirement—there’s no plot connection that would confuse you if you read one without the other.
👋 Final Thoughts
Malibu Rising is sunburnt and waterlogged, grief-stained and gorgeously alive. It’s a novel about what we carry, what we bury, and what bursts free when we finally stop trying to hold it all together. Taylor Jenkins Reid has once again proven that no one writes fame, family, or feminine rage like she does. It’ll break your heart – and then let you build a new one in its place.