Many people have seen the ads for Amazon Prime’s new mini series, Daisy Jones and The Six, but what most people don’t know is that it was a bestseller before it hit the big screen. 

   Daisy Jones and The Six was published in 2019 by author Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was the Reese’s Book Club pick in February of the same year. It was thanks to being picked for Reese’s Book Club that the book was able to be made into a series. Rights to adapt the book were discussed before it was even published, and Hello Sunshine, the production company that was started by Reese’s Book Club, was the main creative mind behind the show. Both Reid and Reese Witherspoon served as producers. 

   Daisy Jones and The Six follows a fictitious band in the 1970’s. Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne are the lead singers and they feel drawn to one another after having had similar struggles with addiction and love. Billy is married at the time and a large part of the story revolves around Daisy and Billy’s hatred for one another as well as the desire to be with one another despite all of the obstacles that stand in their way. 

   Most of the show is about Billy, Daisy, and the rest of the band recording their album Aurora. It is The Six’s second album and Daisy’s first. Billy and Daisy write the album together, and the songs range from heartbreaking ballads about their desire to be together, to raging rock songs about love and addiction. The band records their album and sets out on their world tour. Even though Daisy and Billy are the main characters, most of the supporting characters also have incredibly important storylines. Camila, Billy’s wife, is struggling to raise their daughter by herself. Eddie is secretly feuding with Billy and feels like he should be the frontman of the band. Karen and Graham have been secretly seeing one another, and eventually get pregnant. Karen chooses to have an abortion without Grahms consent, and the two never speak again after that. While the band is touring in Chicago, everything falls apart. Billy and Daisy fight, Camila plans to leave Billy, Eddie reveles that he cheated with Camila and Billy punches him in the face, Graham finds out about Karen’s abortion, and Daisy leaves without a trace. Their Chicago show is the last one that the band will ever play. One of the reasons I loved this show was because each of these storylines has you rooting for the characters and hating them at the same time. When Billy was contemplating leaving his wife for Daisy, part of me wanted him to do it, and another part of me wanted to scream at him to stay with Camila. Every character has flaws and none of them always make the right decisions. This is part of the beauty of the series and the overall story. 

   Both Daisy and Billy were beautifully written characters. In the book, they are both broken people who find solace in one another. The reader is rooting for them because they are so similar, but at the same time they know that if Billy and Daisy were to ever admit their love for one another, it would be catastrophic. Riley Keough and Sam Claflin brought new and exciting aspects to Reids original characters. Keough did a brilliant job at portraying the wild and recklessness of Daisy Jones, and Claflin nailed the “love to hate him” nature of Billy Dunne’s character. 

   The supporting cast of the series was also incredibly impressive. Suki Waterhouse played keyboardist Karen Sirko and her love interest Graham Dunne was played by Will Harrison. The two had amazing chemistry and embodied their characters very well. Drummer Warren Rhodes was played by Sebastain Chacon and bassist Eddie Roundtree was portrayed by Josh Whitehouse. The two actors brought life and emotion to the characters and were both perfectly suited for their roles. Camila Morrone played Camila Dunne, Billy’s wife. While Camila is one of the characters that fans dislike the most, mostly because she stands in the way of Billy and Daisy being together. Most fans wanted Billy and Daisy to live happily ever after, and Camlia was the one thing standing in their way. Morrone was spectacular in her role and made every viewer fall in love with her character. She made fans root for Camila and Billy, and when he eventually chooses her, fans weren’t that upset because of Morrone’s spectacular portrayal of the character. 

   One of the most special and unique parts of the show is the fact that all of the actors learned to play their characters’ instruments. Keough and Claflin also had to take singing lessons in order to perfect the vocal styles of singers in the 70s. Of all of the actors and actresses, Waterhouse was the only one who went into the project having had some musical experience. The rest of the cast learned how to play their instruments before filming even started. This meant that they all had long rehearsal days as a traditional band would. While this placed extra stress on the actors, it added a very real element to the show. It is cool to watch the actors sing and play guitar and know that it is actually that actor who is singing and playing the guitar. It makes it more believable that you are not watching Sebastian Chacon fake playing the drums, you are watching Warren Rhodes actually play the drums. 

   The miniseries is only ten episodes long, and there will not be a continuation, as there was not a sequel to the book and the TV show tried to stay as accurate to the books as possible. They did a very good job for the most part, they did not take any characters out of the series and did not add any unnecessary characters or storylines. As with every book to series adaptation a few small changes were made, but they were all intentional and important. Most of the changes were altering a few aspects of a character’s personality or changing a line from the book to a slightly different line in the show. 

   Another fun aspect of the show is the album that comes along with it. Most of Daisy Jones and The Six is about Daisy and Billy writing the album Aurora together. For the book, Reid wrote out all of the lyrics to the eleven tracks on the album, but for the show songwriters were hired to make Aurora come to life. While none of Reid’s original lyrics made it to the actual album, it is still a brilliant album and for fans of the book it is a dream come true to listen to something they had only heard in their heads for so long. All of the actors sing and play their instruments on the album, which just makes it even more special. 

   Daisy Jones and The Six is a timeless piece of both literature and TV and even though it was only ten episodes, the show will never be forgotten.