Attachments By Rainbow Rowell

From the Inside Flap:

“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 heir 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 and 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…?

My Review… Spoilers Ahead (here’s your sign)

I read Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl during the summer and absolutely loved it. So this past Christmas when I was thinking about what to buy my best friend, I remembered suggesting that she read Attachments, but I hadn’t read it myself. That gave me the perfect reason to purchase two copies. One for me and one for her.

I started reading this book January 29th and just finished it February 8th. I could not put it down. The main character, Lincoln, is adorable. He’s the sweetest peach of a guy I have ever had the pleasure of reading. He definitely grows throughout the story from being a lost boy to being a less lost, but totally believable adult. I could definitely relate to his path in this book. At the beginning, he is content to stay at home and work a boring job and spend his weekends the same old people doing the same old stuff he’s done for the past 9 years. It wasn’t until reading Beth’s e-mails that he felt motivated to stop spinning his wheels and finally get some traction in his life. He started going to the gym, meeting new people, dating, diversifying his social calendar, and he moved out on his own. As far as development goes, I’d say his progress was believable for a 28 year old guy.

Beth is an excellent female character. She’s smart and funny and is more like me than I would have expected. One, she’s a nerd. Not a Dungeons & Dragons nerd like Lincoln, but a pop culture, movie buff nerd. Now, I’m nowhere near as funny or equipped with good social skills like Beth, but she and I aren’t very good at talking. Things get weird or we say things that come off harsher than we intended. Plus, she and I love October for all the reasons anyone could love an autumn month.

Beth is dating a guy named Chris at the beginning and, of course, ends up with Lincoln. Have you ever been with someone knowing that he or she is the wrong person for you, but you hold out hope for a future because you love them? Yeah, that’s Beth’s situation. She was in a relationship for way too many years, being treated like a ghost, ignored and neglected. All of her friends tell her she needs to find someone new, but she’s stuck in love with a guy who is (let’s face it) an asshole. Who hasn’t been there? Am I right?

Beth’s progression through the story felt a little rushed. Mostly because the end was rushed. She was dating again after a few months of breaking up with Chris and with Lincoln in less than a year. I don’t know about you, but I would have been heartbroken for a lot longer than 3 months and it would take me more than a year to be able to fall in love with someone else. I don’t know, may be I haven’t come across that one guy where you get that feeling.

Seeing Lincoln and Beth together was awesome. There wasn’t much, but when they did finally get together I was just sitting there like, “What is happening?”

Recommendation

If you haven’t read a Rainbow Rowell novel read one. Read one right now. It doesn’t matter which one you choose.

If you are a hard core nerd who’s into fan fiction, then pick up Fangirl.

If you like girly reads and run in the professional crowd, but enjoy quirky, nerdy characters then Attachments is right up your alley.

If you read my stories and happen to enjoy them then you should run out and buy ever Rainbow Rowell book you see because that is what I’m going to be doing once my book buying ban is over in April.

Favorite Quotes from Attachments:

“I was so insecure, I needed him to bang down my door and fill my room with flowers.” 71 Jennifer

“I felt like you at the babyGap, buying munchkin overalls. Just making up my life. (Actually, it was more pathetic than that – because you don’t even want a baby. I want to be engaged. Somewhat desperately, let’s face it.)” 93 Beth

“It would have to be. I already love you so much. I already feel like something in my chest is going to pop when I see you. I can love anyone more than I do you, It would kill me. And I couldn’t love anyone less because it always feel like less. Even if I love some other girl, that’s all I would ever think about, the difference between loving her and loving you.” 96 Lincoln

“I touch you and my whole body…rings. I Cabela’s something. And I could touch other girls, and maybe there would be something, you know, like maybe there would be noise. But not like with you. And what would happen if I kept touching and touching them, and then … and then, I tried to touch you again? I might not be able to hear us anymore. I might not ring true.” 97 Lincoln

“October. My favorite month. Which, by the way, has only have begun. Some find it melancholy. “October,” Final things, “and the trees are stripped bare…” Not I. There’s a chill in the air that lifts my heart and makes my hair stand on end. Every moment feels meant for me. In October, I’m the star of my own movie – I hear the soundtrack in my head (right now, it’s “Suite: Judy blue eyes”) –and I have faith in my own rising action. I was born in February, but I come alive in October.” 99 Beth

“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O Grace!” 100 Beth

“I woke up thinking about how, no matter how bad everything else is, there’s still October.” 100 Beth

“He stops talking and looked at her. Even in the dark, even in January, even breaking his heart, she was pink and radiant. She reminded him of a rosebush flowering in stop motion.” 135

“They were both quiet again. Lincoln couldn’t trust himself to speak. Everything he wanted to say was wrong. Everything he wanted to say would make her want him less.” 135

“”I don’t want you to go,” Sam said. She was upset. “I don’t want it to end like this.”– – “You don’t get to choose,” Lincoln said. “It’s just happening.”” 138

“It was nice of him. He was nice all day. He came back home about an hour after they cleared out, and I was still sitting on the couch, feeling sorry for myself and thinking about how every one of those idiotic girls is going to get married before me, and about how Diet Coke and rum is the most moronic drink of all time. They should call it a Moron, so that girls who order it would have to call themselves out at the bar.” 179 Beth

“What did it mean that Beth and Jennifer were emailing again? Probably nothing, he decided. Probably the last few weeks of silence from them were just a fluke. Not God’s way of helping Lincoln get on with his life. That had been a dumb thing for him to think. Dumb and grandiose.” 245

“I wasn’t built for this,” he yelled. “Look at me. You know it’s true.” And for the first time, maybe ever, he didn’t sound cool. He sounded a little panicked. And a little angry. “I don’t want to love someone so much that they take up all my head, all my space. If I knew I was going to feel this way about you, I would have left a long time ago, while I still could.” 269 Chris

“It’s still too weird. And I’m not ready to date anybody. I’m not even ready to rebound. I do feel like I was hitting on someone at my husband’s funeral.” 290 Beth

“It was cold for October. The kids would have to wear put the coats over here Halloween costumes, and they could ask every door who they were supposed to be. October, we can thought to himself. Kelou, Calais. He stood is open bedroom window just for a moment to let the memory passed through him. Mary October…just then, while he was leaving, someone at the back of the theater spilled a box of candy something hard and loud, M&Ms or everlasting gobstopper is, that cut it down the slope concrete floor. We can turn around without thinking that’s when he saw her, sitting a few rows behind him in a few seats over. Dark hair. Heart face. Freckles. So pretty. Bath. They can look away soon as he realized it was her – but she’d already recognized him. She looked right at him she’d looked… How much she looked? Surprised. Just surprised. You to think that he would’ve thought about this moment, as much as he thought about her over the last few months. It’s not like they lived in Tokyo or mom by our place where people could really lose each other. This was a small city. A small city with a relatively few places you’d want to go, especially especially if you wereA movie reviewer. Lincoln had thought of the Dundee as his theater, but, really, it was like he shown up at bats office.” 310

“There are moments when you can’t believe something wonderful is happening. And there are moments when your entire consciousness is filled with knowing absolutely that something wonderful is happening. Making felt like he dumped his head into the sink full of pop rocks and turned on the water. He shook his jacket on the floor and put his arms around her. All he could think was bad. All you do was let this dream come true.” 311

“She laughed. It was better than he could have imagined. Like a giggle falling off its chair.” 318