Coming of age in the period of beats, hippies, and free love, Robin Green went from waitress to free-lance journalist for Rolling Stone virtually overnight. After using an old college connection to secure a meeting, Robin nails the interview. Her first story goes immediately to the cover which leads to her eventually rise as the first female on the masthead of Rolling Stone. You may recognize her name as a writer on the Sopranos and Blue Bloods.
Green weaves her story through vignettes from her life and shares with the reader some of her most poignant memories. It is as much a tale of her career trajectory as it is as of self-discovery and of finding her way through love and relationships.
The Only Girl is an extremely vulnerable memoir. Robin shares so much with the reader that you cannot help but love her and feel an automatic connection. Sometimes I even thought she shared a bit too much (TMI Robin). What I particularly enjoyed about her story is how relatable it is. She is honest in her setbacks and acknowledges that her trajectory was not always linear. She faces various setbacks, but continues to discover new paths forward. Her imperfection and struggle is part of what makes her so relatable and, at times, lovable.
This is a quick and easy autobiography. The stories are quite tantalizing which made the chapters zoom by despite occasional writing flaws. The narrative is not always chronological, it jumps around and is somewhat repetitive. Green also employed lots of details, which made some sentences long and tangled. Indeed, one sentence had no less than 142 words and 16 punctuation marks. Regardless, if you were ever a fan of the magazine or the countercultural age, it is definitely worth the read!
Verdict: 3.5/5 stars
Length: 288 pages
Quote: ‘“Who’s the new bitch?’ And my name was added as contributing editor on the masthead, where among all the guys, I was the only girl.”
Also Read: Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jan Wenner and Rolling Stones Magazine by Joe Hagan
Buy The Only Girl: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone by Robin Green
