Landline

by Rainbow Rowell

Rebecca Lowman (Narrator)

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it's been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply -- but that almost seems beside the point now. Maybe that was always besides the point. Two days before they're supposed to visit Neal's family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can't go. She's a TV writer, and something's come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her -- Neal is always a little upset with Georgie -- but she doesn't expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her. When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she's finally done it. If she's ruined everything. That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It's not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she's been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts. Is that what she's supposed to do? Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

• ISBN10: 1427239320
• ISBN13: 9781427239327
• Publish Date: 8 July 2014 (first published 2 July 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 October 2023
• Imprint: MacMillan Audio
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Pages: 7
• Language: English

Reviews

[gmcgregor]

Growing together really lies at the heart of what makes a long-term relationship work. In Rainbow Rowell's Landline, Georgie and Neal meet while working at their campus humor magazine in college, marry when they're 23, and by the time they're in their late 30s, they have what looks like on the outside to be a cozy little setup. Georgie writes for a cheesy sitcom, and Neal is a stay-at-home dad to their two little girls. But Georgie and her long-time writing partner have dreamed of their own show for ages, and they finally get the chance to pitch it to someone who could make it happen. In order to give it their best shot, though, Georgie will need to miss the annual family trip to Nebraska to spend Christmas with Neal's parents. Her decision to do so, combined with her husband's growing dissatisfaction, puts her marriage in jeopardy.

Desperate to get ahold of her husband and with a dying cellphone, she drags out an old landline phone to connect with him. Georgie slowly comes to realize, though, that while the voice on the other end of the line is her husband, it's not him now. It's him on Christmas break their senior year in college, when he broke up with her but then suddenly showed up on her doorstep with a ring. As she remembers the early days of their love story, and the versions of themselves they used to be, she finds herself thinking about how things have changed over the years and re-evaluating what it actually is that she wants and needs from her life.

Rainbow Rowell is a writer who is constantly recommended for her sweet, compelling love stories. This one will strike a chord for many women who work and feel stuck between their home/family life and their career. Although Georgie's probably the more relatable character simply because the story's told from her perspective, I really appreciated that both she and Neal are painted in shades of grey. She's not demonized for wanting to be successful in her chosen field, but neither is he for feeling neglected and put-upon. The characters Rowell builds feel real, and so do the situations she puts them in. And, crucial in a book about being on the phone, she's got a great knack for dialogue.

Now on to the less good. Landline was Rowell's first adult novel (most of her work falls into YA), and I'd heard it was not one of her stronger efforts. I'm glad I had that warning ahead of time, because while I thought there were a lot of flaws here I wasn't crushingly disappointed. In order to really buy into the book, you have to be emotionally invested in Georgie and Neal's love story, and I just wasn't. I didn't understand what brought them together in the first place, much less what kept them together. And the tone of the whole thing just felt wonky. On the one hand, Rowell clearly wanted to write something light-hearted and charming, with quirky side characters all over the place to keep the mood up (her mom breeds pugs AND has a much younger husband! And her younger daughter insists on being called Noomi instead of Naomi AND talks like a cat!). But on the other, she's trying to write something heartfelt about the challenges of making sure you and your spouse/partner are growing together and not apart, and the stresses of trying to keep your family happy and achieve your professional goals. That's a much more serious book, and in trying to toe the line between them it fails more often than it succeeds. But I liked the quality of her writing, and while I ultimately wasn't wow-ed by this book, I'm definitely interested in reading her YA.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

It’s election season and this house gets constant calls every night during dinner wanting to know our opinion about who should be elected president. Yes, I’m one of those crazy people who still owns a landline. And yes, I grew up in the 80s and 90s and can recall stretching the cord on the phone at my parent’s house to the bathroom, closing the door part way and talking to my high school boyfriend hoping no one would overhear. So to say I identified with Georgie and the phone in her childhood bedroom is a little bit of an understatement.

I like the messages or lessons in Landline more than I liked the characters. Georgie and Neal were just a tad too annoying to me. While I do believe their relationship is a reflection of real relationships, I found it hard to identify with them. There were times when I wanted to slap Georgie for being so wishy-washy. She was so frustrating whimpy and so full of non-action when it seemed clear she WANTED to act that I found myself grinding my teeth and telling her to move her ass in my head as I listened to this in my car.

Now the messages or lessons of Landline I totally identified with. The idea that love is something you work at and work for made my heart sing. The idea that we shouldn’t take our loved ones for granted is something I identified with a great deal. The “hindsight is 20/20” reflection on what life might have been if we had taken the other fork in the road happens on a regular basis for many of us. And if you have experienced the loss of a loved one, either through death or a breakup or separation, who doesn’t wish they could talk it all through again and try to make sense of why it happened?

Overall, I enjoyed Landline. It tells a realistic love modern love story about how our daily lives and actions affect those around us, ourselves included. While I did find Georgie’s inaction annoying, the overarching messages and lessons in Landline made this a strong read for me.


This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews

[liz089]

Read more about this review and others on my blog Freyja Eats Books

REVIEW.
I bought this book on sale on Amazon, because well.. it’s Rainbow Rowell. I really enjoyed Fangirl recently and I see a lot of her coming by, so I wanted to give this one a chance. Plus, the summary sounded interesting, with a magical phone to the past. It gives a “normal” romance more of an otherworldly twist.

I have to say it right away.. I was hooked on this one, but kind of disappointed on the end. I had a lot of free time last weekend and I finished it almost in one day. I loved how easily it was written and the main character was very likeable. BUT. The ending. I found the build-up to this moment (that we all saw coming) come to an abrupt end not living up to my expectations. She has given her relationship a lot of thought during the book and I loved her adventure getting to Omaha, but once she was there it just ended. I did not feel satisfied. I wanted MORE.

I do get, and know, that this is more of a realistic ending. Most of the time people don’t get their happy ending, people have to work hard to make a relationship work. You don’t get an extraordinary big life with an even bigger happily ever after. But well.. this book has a magical phone ! So I damn well wanted a magical happy ending.

And not just that, but even though I really liked Georgie and she was a fun narrator, I got kind of annoyed. We all know she will go to Omaha at the end, to her family and Neal. It will be her big gesture. It is what she needs to do to try and save her family. But come on, she takes way too long to make that choice. She should have gone with them in the first place.. It’s Christmas ! But she didn’t, and I get why. But after she felt so bad about it all, she should have just left for Omaha right away.

Even though I rooted for Georgie, I had some trouble with Neal. He seemed like a very difficult person to be with, and I had a hard time liking him. Especially when he didn’t even pick up his phone when he was in Omaha with their children. She is your wife ! She did not stay home for nothing, but for a once in a lifetime chance ! He acted like a sad little victim, saying that it was okay for her to stay at home, but meanwhile ignoring her.. Yes, it was not the first time and stuff. But don’t say things are okay when they are most definitely not. You don’t help anyone with lying about it. Not you and not you man. I mean wife.. (come on, he really acted like a woman).

I was also not so much in love with Seth.. he acted very selfish and ignorant. They are supposed to be best friends, but when he notices she is in trouble, her marriage is in trouble, he cares more about the show. Georgie goes to the past a couple of times, telling about how she met him and stuff, but I didn’t see it. Why she stayed friends with him. Even though they know each other for a long time, they don’t communicate at all.

That seemed to be an overall theme, the not communicating. Not with Seth, not with her husband. They are the most important and constant people in her life, and she does not talk with them. Luckily she had some revelations at the end that made her see that, but it did bother me throughout the book.

I did like some of the other characters though, Heather was great. She was so cute and a very fun sister. She genuinely cares about her sister and tries to help. Nice change of scenery.

Oh yeah, so I should also talk a bit about THE phone. It was the mystical part of this book that had everybody wondering what was going on. Was it really happening or was it her going out of her mind ? At the end, I’m more sure that it happened, and that it had impact on the past/future. I liked that, how she weaved the past and the future together. To have Georgie think back later on and some things making more sense after those phone calls.

FINAL THOUGHTS.
So for me this was kind of a coincidence to read just before I got married myself. It gave some insights that I can take with me; like to always keep working to make your marriage work and don’t take the other person for granted. But, overall I did not really enjoy the book like I would have thought. The ending seemed kind of abrupt and I disliked some characters that I should like to make the story work for me. But it was easy to read, and the writing style was likeable enough to get right through it. So, I would like to give this one 2.5 Freyja’s, and well.. I don’t know if I would recommend it. Maybe as an easy read in between if you’re bored and don’t know what else to read ?

[Rinn]

Rainbow Rowell's writing is cute and wonderful as always, but I don't think this particular one was for me.

[mary]

I loved this book more than I expected too. I have come across many varied reviews with people admitting that this may be there least favorite Rainbow Rowell novel. Which basically means it is still adored just not as much. I did enjoy this adult novel by her probably as much as her YA novels.

For one I really resonated with the characters- especially Georgie. I understand how it feels to constantly be working and then feeling inadequate outside of work. Her whole life has been about this dream job of hers and she feels terrible that it seems to have pushed away the love of her life, Neal. At the beginning, we see what appears to be a rocky marriage. This marriage almost seems to be pushed to its limits when Georgie decides to stay home and work instead of travel with her family to Omaha to visit Neal's mother for Christmas. Both Neal and Georgie have their reasons to feel hurt and betrayed.

I did really like Neal as well. He is the perfect quiet type- that never really gives much away with this facial expressions. I know what it is like to date a guy who never smiles or laughs. It can be really difficult and frustrating because you have to read them differently. Especially since Georgie is a comedy writer, she can't even get a laugh out of Neal. I do completely understand Georgie's perspective in this instance and I feel for her. But in the end she loves Neal and she realizes she is being a little selfish when it comes to her job. And of course by the end of the novel she realizes what she has to do to get her family back.

Now as for the landline phone that connects back to the past. Yes, it is very unrealistic, but I don't think that is the point. I found it a great way for Georgie to learn of her mistakes with Neal and as a way to remember why the feel in love in the first place. I loved reading those parts and the dialogue that occurred between her and twenty-something old Neal. I think we all wish we could go back to those moments when we truly fell in love with someone. When everything was intense and perfect. But life happens and a relationship is about growing with the other person through those hardships and experiences. This magic landline phone allowed that to happen for Neal and Georgie.

Yes it was a predicable ending, but overall it was a very entertaining read. It was heartwarming, tender, and real all at once. I would highly recommend it to all Rainbow Rowell fans and anyone who loves reading about real relationships.

[Sam@WLABB]

Wow! Trying to recover from the feels. RR always does this to me. She is just so good at constructing beautiful, funny, sweet, endearing stories that are filled with these ordinary characters who are extraordinary. This is Georgie's story. She stays home from a family trip in order to work. When she and he husband part, she is uneasy about how he left. This is when Georgie starts combing through the memory banks. These recollections are so lovely, you cannot help but get a little choked up. In addition to these walks down memory lane, Georgie finds that she is able to communicate with "young" Neal, "before" they got engaged and married Neal, back when they were having some relationship problems "Neal". These interactions made me fall in love more and more each time with GeorgieAndNeal.

A few things to love here
1. The characters were about my age. I don't often read romances with people around my age, so that was pretty cool.
2. This is a love story between married people. I am used to reading about people falling in love, and beginning new relationships. This is a story of exploring the love you have and finding out how much you value it. Everyone is guilty of taking things for granted, Georgie is no exception. She only hopes she is in time.
3. RR is funny, like, really funny. This woman cracks me up and she must be about my age, because I always get all her pop culture references. (WIN!)

If you are looking for a beautiful story of two REAL people in love, who have to juggle real life along with maintaining the romance, you will love this book. I have now read all of RR's books, and I cannot wait for the next one.

[girlinthepages]

I’m going to preface this review by coming right out and saying it: I really, really enjoyed this book. I know it’s received a lot of mixed and lukewarm reviews, and a lot of readers prefer Rowell’s first contemporary novel Attachments. However, I found Landline to be a book I couldn’t put down. No, it’s not action packed, and no, it’s not quite sci-fi despite the “magic phone” element, and it may not appeal to the same YA lovers who proudly profess their love of Fangirl but it’s an introspective look at a character trying to evaluate and save her marriage, and if there’s one thing I know about Rainbow Rowell, it’s that she writes fantastic characters that are easy to adore.

Landline focuses on Georgie, a television writer, and Neal, a stay at home dad, and their current relationship which started fourteen years prior in college. Georgie realizes that despite her and Neal being deeply in love with each other, it’s possible that their relationship may be damaged beyond repair as the dynamics of children, careers, in laws and distance all take their toll over time. While separated from her family over the Christmas holiday, Georgie encounters her old yellow rotary phone from high school and finds when she calls Neal’s childhood home’s landline, she is able to speak with that fourteen year younger version of her husband, and is thus faced with hard decisions: Should she do something differently to make her marriage better? To prevent her marriage at all? Is she in a Back to the Future scenario in which her daughters are going to spontaneously disappear if she makes the wrong move? Is she actually insane?

Watching Georgie go through her internal struggle is what makes this book so interesting. Rowell builds Georgie’s relationships so interestingly, and her relationships with all the characters, from her too-young mother to her teenage half sister to her best friend Seth are all nuanced and quirky, and thus achingly realistic. A lot of the book is comprised of dialogue (no surprise with the focus being on a phone) and while for some readers the dialogue heavy/action light narrative may be too slow for their enjoyment, I thought it really showed Rowell’s skills. She can build a gripping story off of human conversations, emotions, and intimate conflict without having to resort to hugely drama-filled scenarios. I really felt as though I knew Georgie as a protagonist, and in some ways the book read like a character study for this smart and driven woman who’s history is revealed through self reflection, flashbacks, phone calls, and the reminiscing of close friends and families. It made me, as a reader, feel invested in Georgie’s marriage and in turn invested in the book.

As usual, Rowell charms with her plethora of pop culture references, especially in this book when Georgie and her best friend are tv writers. Everything from Metallica to Harry Potter to Gossip Girl is referenced in such a natural way that readers will get excited when they see it on the page and laugh aloud and agree with the characters reminiscing on these well-known icons in media.

One complaint that readers may have is while this book is a great display of Rowell’s talent in writing fantastically relateable and engaging characters, there are quite a bit of questions that go unanswered. There is really never ever explanation for the functioning of the yellow phone that allows Georgie to speak to Neal in the past, and never a concrete discussion or confirmation between the two about the conversations that transpired, so readers will need to be ok with never really knowing the mechanics (or the validity) of Georgie’s ability to talk to Neal in the past (was it her older self the whole time? Was she always filling in for her college self during those phone calls? Did they originally go differently? Agh, time travel stuff gets so confusing!)

Favorite Quote: “You don’t know when you’re twenty-three. You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there.” -pg 201

Overall: Landline is a fantastic novel for those who appreciate Rowell’s talent in writing nuanced characters and who love her knack for integrating pop culture references. It may have been a “slower” book in terms of less action and lots of dialogue, but essentially it’s a book about Georgie’s reflection on her own choices, her love for Neal, and her marriage, and how much a factor is love when other life decisions and ambitions force their way between you and your partner. While readers who need concrete closure may not like the ending of Landline, I found it to be a really realistic portrayal of fixing and healing a marriage- a process that may never have complete “closure” as couples work on their marriage one day at a time.

[lisacee]

Another beautiful and heartbreaking book by Rainbow Rowell.

[leahrosereads]

“I think I can live without you, but it won't be any kind of life.”

Rainbow Rowell has consistently written novels that I’ve enjoyed, immensely, and Landline is the newest novel of hers that I can add to that list.

While I don’t think that the concept behind Landline is unique, and it isn’t. Time travel themes have been done before, and in a lot of cases done better, but this was still such a great story, because what Rainbow Rowell does really well, in my opinion, is making the readers empathize with her characters. And I felt so much for Georgie.

The story revolves around the life of Georgie McCool, a TV writer who is about to catch her big break with a show she’s writing on. The issue is that the Network bigwigs want more than just the Pilot written for the show, so Georgie chooses to stay to help write over Christmas. This does not go over well with her husband, Neal, because they had already made plans to take their children to visit family in Omaha. Still, Georgie, wants to stay and get this TV show written. It’s her dream after all, and she assumes that the family can go another time to Omaha.

She assumes wrong, because Neal takes the girls without her, leaving Georgie alone days before Christmas (her own choosing). While on her own, she visits her mother, and because her phone never seems to have a charge, she uses an old landline to call Neal to make sure he and the girls have made it safely. She gets a hold of him, but it’s Neal circa 20 years ago. And thus a reconnection of souls occurs.


I would have loved to have read this during the holiday season, because I thought it just had a wonderful theme of family, mistakes and love to it. I thought that Georgie really grew during the story, and I just wanted her and Neal to have a true happily ever after.

I would definitely recommend this to any of my friend that want something quick and relatively light to read. While there was drama in the story, it took a backseat to Georgie and Neal’s reconnection, and I loved that.

[Leah]

Rainbow Rowell is an author I very much admire, and very much enjoy. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who dislikes Rainbow's novels because they're that far-reaching and that awesome. She writes books that anyone can enjoy - Chick Lit, Young Adult, somewhere in-between, so I was very, very excited to hear about her new novel Landline. I thought it sounded fantastic. I love novels with magical concepts, and I just adore the idea of being able to talk to somebody via a magical yellow telephone, in the past. It's CRAZY, but it's awesome. I get a kick out of magical elements like that, they're the best. So I was very intrigued to see if Rainbow could pull it off...

First off let me say that Rainbow is such an awesome writer - of that there is no doubt. And Landline is written superbly, but for me, I felt like every day leading up to Christmas Day was the same for Georgie. The whole reason she didn't go to Omaha for Christmas was so she could work, but she actually spends the days moping, crying, and not doing any work and every day's like Groundhog Day because she does the same thing - she goes to stay at her Mother's, she sleeps in really late, and when she does show up at work she doesn't do anything. I got a little tired of her refusing to talk to anyone, it was quite annoying, and I just wanted her to pull herself together, to be less of a sad sack. I understand she was going through a rough time, but I just felt she needed to be a bit more in control, and I could understand why (eventually) Seth got exasperated with her; if she was so worried about her marriage, she would have got on a plane to Omaha tout-de-suite.

A lot of the reviews I've read mention how Neal irritated them, which made me kind of sad. Looking at it from his perspective, I can see why he was so frustrated all of the time, and it was a classic case of Georgie and Neal needing to talk to each other. If they just talked to each other, were a bit more honest, understood that marriage is a compromise sometimes, they might not have ended up where they did. I quite liked Neal, especially the young Neal we get to know, maybe he's not stereo-typically happy-go-lucky, maybe he doesn't know what he wants from his life, but I got him. I don't know what I want to do with my life and the thing I'm doing (working at a supermarket) sucks, just like his oceanography studies. The best part of the novel for me was definitely the whole Georgie-talking-to-Neal-in-the-past. That was ace. That let us peek into their lives before kids, before marriage, before work and frustrations and all of that seeped into their every day lives and when Georgie and Neal were just falling in love, and trying to make their relationship work.

I probably would have liked Landline to have had an Epilogue. I'm a sucker for knowing what comes next, and considering we spent so long with Georgie, Seth and Scotty working on their show, I would have liked to have seen whether it had taken off (or not). But it was a great, solid read. There were times when I definitely loved Georgie (and times when I didn't) and I just felt so sad that two people who seemed so perfect for each other (although a teensy, tiny bit of me liked the idea of Georgie & Seth) were struggling so hard to keep the love alive, to keep their marriage kicking. Rainbow Rowell is a writer who I will always read, whose books I'll pre-order months in advance and although I probably loved Attachments more, Landline was a solid read, and it made me laugh a couple of times, too, and there was just something ridiculously sweet about the fact Georgie's little girl Noomi spent a lot of her time meowing. It was way, way too cute.

This review was originally posted on Girls Love To Read