The author of New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick Lucky returns with a love letter to rock ‘n’ roll and star-crossed love, following Jane Pyre’s road trip around Europe as she attempts to find out what really happened to her partner in love and music, who disappeared without a trace years earlier, leaving Jane to pick up the pieces.

Jane Pyre was once one half of one of the most famous rock ‘n’ roll duos in the world, The Lightning Bottles. Years later, she’s perhaps the most hated (and least understood) woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate (and soulmate) Elijah—even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted The Lightning Bottles to instant, dizzying fame, first in the Seattle grunge scene, and then around the world. But then Elijah disappeared and everything came crashing down. Even now, years after Elijah vanished, Jane is universally blamed and reviled by the public.

In an attempt to get some peace and quiet, Jane rents a house in a remote part of Germany where she knows she won’t be disturbed. But on the day she arrives, she’s confronted by her new next-door neighbor, a sullen teenaged girl named Hen who just so happens to be a Lightning Bottles superfan—and who claims to have a piece of information that might solve the mystery of what happened to Elijah, and whether he is, in fact, still alive and leaving messages for Jane after all these years.

A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, interwoven with flashbacks to the beginnings of Jane and Elijah’s love story and meteoric rise, The Lightning Bottles is a love story, a celebration of rock ‘n’ roll, and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.

Being a child of the 80s and 90s, music was a huge part of my upbringing. I also tend to really enjoy books about the music industry and/or musicians working to make it big. Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones & the Six” are two of my faves. I’d never heard of this book before I saw it as an Aardvark book club pick, and I immediately added it to my box as soon as I read the synopsis. It’s a good read, though I felt it was missing something in the end.

The story follows Jane Pyre, a former rock ‘n’ roll star once part of the iconic duo The Lightning Bottles. Jane and Elijah met when they were younger on an online music forum that Jane moderated, and their attraction grew, finally blossoming into something more substantial. When Jane and Elijah first get together, Elijah is part of another band in Seattle, but eventually, Elijah quits, and he and Jane set off to chase their own dreams. Despite being the creative genius behind their hit songs, Jane has been perfectly happy living in Elijah’s shadow. He is definitely more of a people person, whereas Jane is the more creative and more publicly reserved one, which leads many to think she is a coldhearted bitch. When Elijah mysteriously disappears and is believed to be dead, Jane is left to bear the brunt of public scrutiny and hatred.

In an effort to escape the harsh spotlight, Jane retreats to a remote house in Germany, only to be unexpectedly drawn back into the world she left behind after meeting her teenage neighbor, Hen. Hen is a devoted fan of The Lightning Bottles and believes she has crucial information that could shed new light on Elijah’s disappearance and what really happened to him.

For some reason, when I read the synopsis of this book, I thought it would be more of a mystery. (Spoiler alert – it’s not.) While there is definitely a mystery involved, the book focuses mainly on Jane and Elijah’s relationship, starting with how they met, how their relationship developed, how their careers took off and grew, and finally, how it all fell apart. Peppered throughout are chapters focusing on Jane and Hen as they embark on a road trip across continents, united by their shared love of music. The book covers a lot of ground in less than 300 pages, and for the most part, it really worked.

I enjoyed watching Jane and Elijah’s relationship grow, and I was okay with this being the book’s main focus. In my opinion, though, something was lacking in their story. 90’s grunge rock was really gritty and rough. Both Jane and Elijah deal with addiction – his is heroin use, and hers is alcohol – and while we know this and know it could potentially drive a big wedge between them, I felt like their substance dependence was kind of glossed over. It wasn’t enough to ruin the book for me, but it felt like it was missing the grit and the edge of the 90s music scene.

The other thing that bothered me was how quickly and easily this one tied things up. I won’t go into details so as not to spoil anything, but the last few chapters were quite underwhelming, and things worked out way too conveniently. I had a tough time buying into it.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the characters and their story, even though I felt it was missing some of the grit I would expect from a book set during the 90s music scene. On the downside, I really didn’t like how everything was tied up in a pretty bow at the end. It was a little underwhelming and didn’t fit the rest of the story. If you’re looking for a book about second chances and don’t tend to overthink convenient endings, this might be the book for you.

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