The Lightning Bottles

3.5 stars. I'm a sucker for novels about musicians, and The Lightning Bottles offers an engaging Gen X version of the genre whose tropes include the power of music, the perils of fame, and the sexism of the music industry. Using a mix of real and fictional musicians (Courtney Love and Michael Stipe are name dropped, but for some reason Sinead O'Connor and Kurt Cobain are represented by thinly veiled versions of themselves), Stapley captures that confusing time in 1990s Seattle when musicians wanted to be well known enough to be appreciated for their art, but not so famous that they could be accused of selling out. The arcs of talented, naive musician Jane and the charismatic but emotionally fragile Elijah are largely predictable, down to Elijah's jealous best friend and the Yoko Onofication of Jane. But the involvement of Hen, a lonely teenaged German fan, who encounters Jane five years after the Lightning Bottles' disastrous breakup, provides an interesting, fresh note. And the mystery of Elijah's fate is less obvious; I'm still not sure how I feel about the resolution. The Lightning Bottles may not be striking enough to be adapted into a star-studded TV series like [b:Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Daisy Jones & The Six Taylor Jenkins Reid https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580255154l/40597810.SY75.jpg 61127102]. But it's enjoyable on its own, less flashy terms. And the song lyrics are only slightly cringe. ARC received from Net Galley and publisher in exchange for objective review.