I like this book so much I am actually angry with myself. I’m angry that I didn’t read it years ago. I’m angry that I read it now. I’m angry that Malin is probably going to pass me on the Leaderboard because I liked Attachments so much I’m not going to be able to read other books for a while. I have three other reviews half written and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to finish them because none of them are this book, and that makes me mad. I’m angry because the main characters are creepy stalkers and I love them so much.
I have read a short novella by Rainbow Rowell before, but it didn’t grab me. I knew I needed to read something else by her. Too many Cannonballers have sung her praises for too many years for me to think I wouldn’t love her. I bought Attachments quite some time ago, but I resisted reading it. The premise didn’t really appeal. I hate joy.
Lincoln gets a job in IT security at a newspaper, which means he reads emails that have been flagged by a program. He’s at a lonely and lost point in his life. He starts reading the email exchanges between Beth and Jennifer. Because he enjoys their emails, he doesn’t send them a warning that they are violating company policy. It gets weirder when Beth starts talking about The Cute Guy. Lincoln and Beth start stalking each other. It is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds, and they know it. We get to know Beth through her emails and Lincoln through his life. They both need to do some growing up before they are ready.
SPOILERS
I was so glad that Lincoln quit and there was time apart before he and Beth connect. I was happy that they were aware of the weirdness of the non-relationship part of their relationship.
I love Beth and Jennifer. Straight up I would have been reading those emails too. They’re a DELIGHT. This is one of Rainbow’s many gifts – characters that you just adore. So even when creepy things happen you’re like *shrug*.
Check out Fangirl. It is an all time great. You will love it :)
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Welcome to the Rainbow Rowell club. I hope you are this angry at all of her other books as well. It makes for very amusing reviews.
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I love this book so much! I read it at a perfect time in my life and it really helped me have a better outlook on myself.
Also, I too want to go get brunch and mimosas with Jennifer and Beth.
I love this book so much. I love your emotional outburst about it!
As I said on Facebook, this is the first Rainbow Rowell book I read (because at that point she hadn’t written any others) and I was absolutely smitten by it, both because of Beth and Jennifer’s friendship, which we get to see so wonderfully through their e-mails and because of Lincoln and the really strange (totally shouldn’t work) romance that develops.
In every Rowell book, I find something she seems to have written JUST FOR ME, and in this book it was Beth and Jennifer – whose e-mail dialogue reminded me so much of myself and my BFF Lydia, who got to know each other as pen pals back in the mid-90s. It was letters rather than e-mails, and as teenagers we clearly discussed entirely different things, but it still hit me right in the feels.
Even now, this is one of the Rowell books I love the most. That neither my husband nor Lydia really liked it all that much is a fact I have stuffed far into the reaches of my denial, because I don’t want them to be dead to me, and not loving this book shows that at least in some aspects they are just objectively wrong.
You should absolutely read all her other books too. They are all amazing.
YES!!
I’m so glad you loved Rainbow enough to be mad about it. Attachments has no right to be as wonderful as it is, and yet… there it is being all wonderful with fantastic characters and a well-paced plot.
#BlameMalin
I can’t remember the last time I fell in love so hard with a book or the person who wrote it. I devoured everything of hers except Carry On (which I didn’t think I’d like – though I absolutely did) and Kindred Spirits (which I haven’t the nerve to read because it’s the last book of hers I have).
She is delight personified.