Okay. Every time I think “Oh, this Rainbow Rowell novel can’t be as good as the authors because that’s just impossible and silly” AND THEN IT IS. So just like the warning label I slapped onto my review of FANGIRL, know that this is going to be a post of me slobbering all over Rainbow Rowell’s writing.
This time it’s ATTACHMENTS, her first published novel. Here is the synopsis from its Goodreads page:
“Hi, I’m the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . ”
Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.
Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.
When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.
By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?
How, HOW, does Rainbow Rowell do this EVERY. DAMN. TIME. She tugs on heartstrings I didn’t even know I had. She teaches me things about humanity that I didn’t ever think of. SHE DOES WHAT FICTION WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO DO.
God.
I just. Like. She turns me into a blubbering fangirl and I always try so hard to be elegant and well-spoken. She does this thing where she writes sentences, simple sentences, that convey a deep idea or point with such clarity that she practically stabs me with wisdom. All under the guise of “telling a story”. Geeze.
For example, when Lincoln is complaining to his mother about her heavy involvement in his life when he’s already in his mid-twenties, she retorts that it’s unfair that God made the most intensive and difficult years of child-rearing in the very beginning when the child has no memory of it. If he could understand what those years were like, how they bond you, then he wouldn’t expect her to give him up so easily.
WOAH. That just hit me so hard square in the chest. I am a mom to two young boys and I had never thought of that but it is certainly very true and now has shaped how I hope to relate to my kids when they are adults themselves.
So, in addition to her subtle life lessons that are sprinkled throughout her novel, the story is also excellent. It’s similar to Fangirl and Eleanor and Park in that it isn’t told exactly linearly, and that it switches “mediums”, so to speak. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone, I absolutely loved it from start to finish.
The only novel of hers left for me to read is Landline, have you read any books by her? What are your favorites?
