Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

[Leah]

Beth and Jennifer know their company monitors their office e-mail. But the women still spend all day sending each other messages, gossiping about their coworkers at the newspaper and baring their personal lives like an open book. Jennifer tells Beth everything she can’t seem to tell her husband about her anxieties over starting a family. And Beth tells Jennifer everything, period. When Lincoln applied to be an Internet security officer, he hardly imagined he’d be sifting through other people’s inboxes like some sort of electronic Peeping Tom. Lincoln is supposed to turn people in for misusing company e-mail, but he can’t quite bring himself to crack down on Beth and Jennifer. He can’t help but be entertained — and captivated — by their stories. By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late for him to ever introduce himself. What would he say to her? “Hi, I’m the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you”? After a series of close encounters and missed connections, Lincoln decides it’s time to muster the courage to follow his heart . . . even if he can’t see exactly where it’s leading him.

Attachments first came to my attention when the book deal for Rainbow was posted on the BookSeller. I’m not going to lie, the book sounded amazing, and at the time I was gutted we had to wait so long to read it! Fast forward two years and the book has finally been released! As well as loving the sound of the book itself, it also has one of the best covers ever. It’s bright pink, with greens and blues and there’s the silhouette of two people who are positioned so there’s a love heart between them. It looks amazing, it reminds me of the cover for One Day by David Nicholls and it’s just such a clever design. I was really excited to read the book when it arrived, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Attachments really is a special novel. It took me three days to finish, but at no point did I ever really want to put the book down. It’s a very addictive novel and I loved the fact that it was written both in email format and as a story too. You have Jennifer and Beth who email each other constantly and then you have Lincoln’s story running alongside it as it’s him who is reading all of their emails. I thought it was such a clever way of presenting the novel, kudos to Rainbow for doing it like that. It’s such an easy and delightful read that it seems as if it’s gone in a flash. Seriously, I feel kind of sad now that I’ve finished it because I was just so taken in with Lincoln, Jennifer and Beth.

What I loved best about the book was the setting. It’s set in a small American state, in 1999 right before the Y2k explosion and it was like a flashback. I was only nine when the world was panicking about all of the Y2k stuff but I remember it easily – who doesn’t? There was huge panic about the world ending and computers crashing and everything and Attachments brings all of that panic and excitement of a new Millennium back brilliantly. It’s a totally retro novel, and looking back it does seem embarrassing how crazy the world got over the Y2k bug but at the time it was like huge and Rainbow has managed to encapsulate that time brilliantly. Everybody who reads this book will be nodding their head at the panic of the newsroom, and then the disappointment when, actually, 2000 came in with little incident!

I must admit, when I heard Lincoln still lived with his mother, at home, my initial thought was “OMG what a loser” but I actually feel bad about that now because Lincoln is one of the sweetest characters you will ever meet. I mean, I love him. He’s like a proper gentle giant and I was wrong to judge him for living with his mother. I mean, Lincoln isn’t the coolest person you’ll ever meet – he struggles to meet new people, he spends his time playing Dungeons & Dragons but he’s too sweet to think of as a geek or as a nerd. He liked his life as it is, and I respected him for that. I absolutely loved Jennifer and Beth, too. We only know them via the emails they send to each other but they’re so honest and open that it’s as if you really know them. Both Beth and Jennifer were brilliant, I loved their friendship and I loved getting to know them. Another character who really made me smile was Doris, she works at the paper refreshing the vending machines and she and Lincoln end up having dinner together most nights and I loved her. All of the characters made me happy.

I loved Attachments. Honestly, it may have taken me three days to finish but I loved every page. I liked the story, despite the potential creepy connotations of Lincoln reading somebody else’s email, I loved the characters and I just loved the whole romantic notion to it. That’s right, I found it romantic that Lincoln fell in love with Beth just by reading her emails. I mean, really, isn’t that just the sweetest thing ever? The 90s references were absolutely ace and the paranoia over Y2k made me smile and remember it all as if it were yesterday. Attachments is one of the freshest, wittiest books I’ve read. I mean what’s not to love? It is the perfect Chick Lit novel with the most romantic love story probably ever. Rainbow Rowell is a genius, seriously. Rainbow has tapped into the zeitgeist of the 90s and has brought up a story that many people will be able to relate to, with characters that it’s so easy to root for. I can’t wait for Rainbow’s next novel, if her second novel is even half as good as Attachments then she has the potential to become huge in the world of Chick Lit!