After reading Fangirl, Eleanor & Park and Attachments - I was beyond excited as I anticipated the release of Rainbow Rowell's latest. The fact that it came out on an exceptionally hard week for me made it pretty much the only good thing that happened last week...Georgie McCool is a comedy writer on a popular television series. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes up for her and her writing partner - the possibility of their very own show - she is over the moon. Except for one thing...she has just a few days to write four scripts...and those four days overlap her planned family vacation to her in-laws Omaha...for Christmas.
Her husband, Neil, barely blinked an eye. He simply announced that the trip was still on - he'd take the kids and go without her. Calm as can be - Georgie is left to wonder if she still has a marriage. Her career has beenher life...the family and home has been Neil's. That he would walk away so easily puts her into a tailspin. At a time when her career needs her attention to make her dream come true - her personal life appears to be falling apart and taking her with it.
Georgie ends up at her mother's house for dinner one night and ends up staying over. because of her unreliable cell battery, she plugs her old landline telephone into the wall under her bed and dials Neil to try to talk things over. What she doesn't expect is that Neil of 15 years earlier answers the phone! It is as if she has a magic portal to her husband that happens to fall in the time of their last "separation" - the week before he proposed.
Now Georgie is faced with the possibility that everything she says or does on these calls affecting her entire life up until where she is now. Is it worth saving her marriage before it even begins? And if so - is it too late to save the marriage in it's current state?
I love Rainbow Rowell's writing style. She has a way of writing these incredibly REAL characters in an incredibly REAL life and adding a little quirk or twist that brings the story to such enjoyable life. I loved the magic to this story that helps her characters bring everything into perspective and to realize that every family has its own disfunctions...and that's what makes them awesome.
Highly recommended.
