attachments

attachments
rainbow rowell
fiction/romance
dutton adult
published 2011

It's 1999 and for the staff of one newspaper office, the internet is still a novelty.  By day, two young women, Beth and Jennifer spend their hours emailing each other, discussing in hilarious detail every aspect of their lives, from love troubles to family dramas.  And by night, Lincoln, a shy, lonely IT guy spends his hours reading every exchange.  At first their emails offer a welcome diversion, but as Lincoln unwittingly becomes drawn into their lives, the more he reads, the more he finds himself falling for one of them.  After a series of close encounters, Lincoln decides it's time to muster the courage to follow his heart...and find out whether there really is such a thing as love before first sight.

To be honest if I read this book before I ever set eyes on Eleanor & Park I probably wouldn't have read E&P which would have been a travesty!  Don't get me wrong, Attachments is a great book, but it's on par with every other adult contemporary novel out there.  Despite some references to D&D and Kevin Smith (which bumps my review up a whole star for that alone) this could have been any other Jennifer Weiner or Emily Giffin book.

But she's funny.  And the book is sweet.  She does really well writing in the male characters voice without it sounding stilted or strange.  I loved Lincoln and wanted to punch Sam in the boob!  Beth and Jennifer cracked me up all the time and I didn't see how everything was really going to come together in a not fairy-tale sort of way.

But it did.  And I'm glad I read it.