Published: July 8, 2014 - St. Martin's Press
How I Got This Book: Borrowed from a friend who snagged it at ALAMW!
Why I Read This Book: I loved Eleanor & Park and Fangirl and basically Rainbow is on auto-buy for me!
Rating: 4.5 stars
Add it to your to-be-read-list! // Buy it!
Annnnd Rainbow knocks it out of the park once again for me! I read this in JANUARY and I still cannot stop thinking about it. Rainbow is supremely talented when it comes to writing about love and relationships with these nuances that just make your heart want to burst. All her books have been VERY different in portraying love in is many stages and forms but all of them do something within me.
Landline delves deep into a marriage on the brink of absolute failure with a main character, Georgie, who seemingly doesn't even realize it until she kind of steps backs and looks at it. They've just gotten so far away from each other that they might as well be living on different planets. When Georgie doesn't go with them for Christmas because of work, she realizes this might have been the last straw for Neal. Sure that she's ruined it beyond the point of return Georgie finds a way, and this sounds corny but I swear Rainbow makes it WORK, to communicate with PAST Neal. Hint hint: that pretty landline on the cover isn't just for decoration.
What I loved about Landline is that it's not just a story about a marriage going wrong but it's a story of falling in love all over again. It's easy to take love forgranted, which Georgie really does, and what does one do in the face of losing it? It's not like Georgie fell out of love with him. She still LOVES him. I loved watching Georgie reflect on her and Neal's relationship and getting to experience it in a new way through communicating with past Neal...the Neal she first met and then dated.
Landline is poignant and thought-provoking (seriously, I've been thinking about my own marriage and even friendships after reading this) and it proves why Rainbow Rowell is one of my all time favorite authors. Her writing is just TO DIE FOR and all the intricacies and nuances of love in all its messy glory just really resonate -- even if you aren't married.
