Thank you fellow Cannonballers for introducing me to Rainbow Rowell. So far, every book of hers that I’ve read has been fantastic and it’s so nice to find a new reliable author. Landline was another fantastic book, a simple and quick read for a lazy afternoon.
Georgie McCool and her husband Neal are having marital problems, huge problems. Problems that are mostly due to a lack of actual communication. So when Georgie tells Neal, the day before, that she is unable to go on their family Christmas vacation she also, accidentally, blows up her marriage. Desperate to contact him, with her cell phone on the fritz, she calls him from the old yellow rotary phone in the bedroom she grew up in. By some trick of fate, that yellow phone connects to Neal several years in the past, the last time the two of them had severe problems and just before Neal proposed. The book skips time as we flit between the modern Georgie and her current problems, and her recollections of the past and how she met and fell in love with Neal. As she goes through these recollections, and the conversations she has with youngNeal she realizes where the root of their problems lay.
Nobody’s lives just fit together. Fitting together is something you work at. It’s something you make happen – because you love each other.
I think that quote from the book encapsulates the heart of the matter.
It’s a sweet little book about love and communication. I’m not really sure that Neal and Georgie have actually fixed their communication issue by the end of the novel, but I do believe that they’re going to try.
I love all of Rainbow Rowell, but this one holds a special place since it was also nice to have a non-YA to read from her. I have a sinking suspicion a Rainbow reread might be in my future.