Attachments
Rainbow Rowell
Lincoln didn't mean to be living with his mother. He didn't intend to have to take a midnight IT job to get by and he certainly didn't picture still being single as the clock counted down to the new millennium. Unfortunately this is his life, and the only thing that could make it worse is that part of his job description is to read private emails sent over his works server. So what happens when I starts to fall in love with a girl he's never met, who frequently ignores work to chat with her friend and sends emails that end up in his flagged folder?
Attachments is very obviously a first novel. That isn't always a bad thing. There are millions of debut novels that stun. Only this one doesn't. The story is interesting enough. Boy is heartbroken forever. Boy gets job invading peoples privacy. Boy then falls in love with one of the people who's privacy he has invaded.
The real problem is that Lincoln isn't as interesting as this premise would like. He struggles with the morality of what he's doing and feeling but that isn't enough to make him a good person. Being inside his head is like being forced to talk to go on a week long vacation with that friend you have that whines all the time.
The email conversations between Beth and Jennifer are the real highlight of Attachments. They're lively and funny and really show that Rowell will excel when embracing creative ways to tell a story. The seeing was also perfect. Like in Eleanor and Park Rowell was able to take a time frame that is both within recent memory yet completely different from today.
Overall if you're a fan of Rainbow Rowells other work than you should give Attachments a read. It's not her best work but it's far from the worst that's out there.
1 comment:
I'm glad this was the first Rowell novel I read. If I'd read E&P first than I might have been disappointed. I did enjoy it, but like you said, not her best.
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