Sarah Tomlinson, a music journalist and ghostwriter, has written her debut novel on a subject quite similar to herself - a ghostwriter profiling the primary former groupie of one of the most famous classic rock bands in the world - The Midnight Ramblers.  Unfortunately, sometimes fact is less fascinating than fiction, as this book is lacking much of what makes a story vibrant and utterly compelling.

As a librarian and prolific reader, I can usually tell by the end of the very first page if a novel has “it” - that special something that is going to grab onto me and not let me go, absorbing me into the story.  Sadly, when reading The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers, it was quickly and glaringly apparent that this novel was not going to be “it” for me.  At the start of the novel, there is a massive character and backstory dump, where all of the band members are introduced.  The novel then continues on as if the reader is supposed to remember and keep track of who is who.  Because the characters were not introduced in a memorable way, I had difficulty throughout the entire novel keep tracking of the characters and distinguishing them from one another.  This was frustrating because when I am reading fiction, I do not want to have to do additional homework just to stay in the story.  Furthermore, groupie Anke’s telling of her history with the band is vague, disconnected, and off-putting.  This was another instance in which I had to work hard to stay in the story and keep track of what was happening.  When you get down to it, this book just wasn’t engaging.

Tomlinson has the bones for a commendable novel here, but unfortunately, the execution is stale and stilted, at least for this reader.  When writing about rock stars, they should leap off the page, not fade into it.  The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers needs some work to grab readers in the quickly over-saturating musical fiction genre.