I don’t actually have the words to properly summarise the plot for this book, because I have so many feelings about it. Formulating them is going to be difficult enough. So I’m going to take the easy way out, and rely on the blurb:
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 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?
It’s not secret to anyone who reads my reviews that I love Rainbow Rowell’s writing. So to say that my expectations for this book were high, is a gross understatement. There are certain authors where I clear my entire schedule for their new books. I was lucky enough that this book came out during the summer holidays, the best time of the year to be a teacher. No lesson planning, no grading, no endless essay correction – just long days of indulgent reading. So I was able to devote myself properly to reading the book. I was a bit wary, because having read the blurb as soon as it was available, it was clear that this was going to be a more serious book, with a fairly painful subject. Eleanor & Park nearly broke my heart because I felt so strongly for the characters. A novel about a marriage in real trouble didn’t exactly sound like a fun read.
It’s excellent, though. Full review here. You can also see what Travis’ and ModernLove‘s thoughts are.
See, I think the power of Rowell’s writing is it can “directly connect” to anyone, their experiences (or lack thereof) be damned. I don’t think there’s anything in her novels thus far that I can 100% relate to, but yet it still finds a way, largely because the telling is so expertly handled that it’s almost as if there is and that I find it especially easy to pick out the tiny parallels between my life and her characters’. If that makes any sense.
Oh, that makes a lot of sense to me. No matter what she writes about, I feel like I am transported wholly into the world of the book, which is why they stay with me and I remember them so clearly. She’s is by far my favourite writer of contemporary fiction right now.