Evelyn Hugo vs Daisy Jones: Which TJR to Read First?

Taylor Jenkins Reid went from steady women’s-fiction author to a publishing phenomenon on the strength of two novels: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017) and Daisy Jones and the Six (2019). Both are glamorous, character-driven stories about famous women, told through a faux-documentary device, and both became runaway book-club and social-media hits. If you are deciding which to read first — or whether to read both — here is how they compare.

At a Glance

What The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Is About

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows an aging, reclusive Hollywood icon who finally agrees to tell the truth about her glamorous, scandalous life — and chooses an unknown magazine writer, Monique, to hear it. As Evelyn recounts each of her seven marriages, the novel reveals the great love she sacrificed everything to hide, and the reason she chose Monique becomes its devastating final turn. It is a story about ambition, queerness, the price of fame, and the lies a woman must tell to survive on her own terms.

What Daisy Jones and the Six Is About

Daisy Jones and the Six is told entirely as the transcript of a documentary, the band members and hangers-on recounting — and contradicting one another about — the rise and sudden 1977 implosion of a fictional rock group. At its centre is the electric, destructive chemistry between free-spirited singer Daisy and the band’s frontman, Billy. The format reads like a music documentary on the page, and the famously withheld reason for the band’s breakup lands in the final pages.

How They Differ

The biggest difference is format. Evelyn Hugo uses a framing interview but is mostly a flowing, immersive first-person narrative — you sink into Evelyn’s life. Daisy Jones is pure oral history: short, clipped, contradictory interview snippets with no connective prose. Some readers find that transcript style thrillingly immediate; others find it keeps them at arm’s length emotionally.

The second difference is tone and payoff. Evelyn Hugo is the more emotional book, building to a reveal that reliably makes readers cry. Daisy Jones is cooler, faster, and more atmospheric — it is about the feeling of a band and an era as much as any one character. If you read Taylor Jenkins Reid for the emotional gut-punch, Evelyn wins; if you read her for vibe and momentum, Daisy holds its own.

The third difference is what each is really about. Evelyn Hugo is a character study and a love story — one woman’s whole life, her ruthlessness and her sacrifices, examined in depth. Daisy Jones is an ensemble portrait of creative partnership, addiction, and the way a band tells itself competing versions of its own history; no single perspective is the truth. Evelyn is a person you come to know intimately; Daisy and Billy are a force you watch from the outside, through everyone who orbited them. Readers who crave deep interiority lean Evelyn; readers who love the Rashomon-style contradictions of an oral history lean Daisy.

Both have also reached the screen, which shapes how readers arrive at them: Daisy Jones and the Six became a Prime Video series with an accompanying album, while an Evelyn Hugo film adaptation has been widely reported. If you have seen one, reading the other first can be a refreshing way in.

Which to Read First

For most readers, start with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It is the more universally loved of the two, the more conventionally immersive, and the bigger emotional experience — the ideal introduction to what makes Taylor Jenkins Reid special. Read Daisy Jones and the Six second, when you already trust her and are ready for the more experimental transcript form.

The exception: if you love music, the 1970s, or you specifically enjoy unconventional formats, begin with Daisy Jones. Its rhythm clicks instantly for the right reader, and the Prime Video adaptation has made it many people’s entry point.

Read Both: How They Complement Each Other

These are not an either/or. Reading both back to back is one of the best ways to appreciate Reid’s range — the same fascination with fame, womanhood, and the gap between public image and private truth, explored through two very different forms. Together they make the strongest possible case for her as more than a one-hit author.

What to Read After

Once you have read both, continue with the rest of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s connected novels — Malibu Rising and Carrie Soto Is Back — using our Taylor Jenkins Reid books in order guide to see how they link. For more in the same emotional, character-driven vein, our list of books like Daisy Jones and the Six and our best summer reading roundup are good next stops.

The short answer to the question everyone asks: read Evelyn Hugo first for the bigger emotional payoff, then Daisy Jones for the format and the music — and you will understand exactly why Taylor Jenkins Reid became one of the defining novelists of the era.