Landline by Rainbow Rowell – REVIEW

Landline is an adult contemporary novel. I read this in a paperback edition published by Orion Books.

Published: January 1st 2014

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Pages: 320 (hardcover)

Audiobook length: 9 hrs and 3 min

 

 

 

 Synopsis by the publisher

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has 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 beside 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?

Rainbow Rowell

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The Writing

Rowell’s writing is witty and I really did like the dialogue between the characters. Especially the ones between Georgie and young Neal.

There was a lot of easy humor, witty remarks and thoughts on love. And I loved the Tolkien references.

This is the second Rowell novel that I’ve read and I do really enjoy her writing even though I don’t feel as captivated by it as many others do.

The Characters

Georgie was a really ambitious character and I could relate to her in her frustration in feeling like she was trying to fulfill her dream as well as taking care of her family.

Seth and Neal made for two interesting male characters. I really fell for Seth in the beginning and just loved his smart remarks and his humor, but when young Neal came into the picture I had a hard time trying to decide which one of them I liked best.

Noomi is the cutest character in the bunch though! “Meow!”

The Plot

Landline had a pretty even pace and good build up.

It did take me a little while to get invested in the story, but when we got to around a hundred pages the story took a hold on me.

I felt like there could have been a lot more to this story as I did enjoy it quite a lot, but felt like everything got resolved a bit too quickly when there was so many feelings behind the whole plot.

I did like the ending though and it got me a little teared up.

My Thoughts

As I wrote above, it did take me quite a while to  get invested in this story. I was not bored for the first hundred pages, but I did not connect with the characters that much either.

But as the story finally took a hold on me I really did fly through it and enjoyed it very much.

It was an enjoyable and fast read but I didn’t love it.

Would you like your own copy of Landline? Click on the Amazon or BookDepository logo below 🙂 

My True Love Gave To Me – REVIEW

My True Love Gave To Me is a collection of short stories by twelve different authors that have a winter romance theme to them.

Let’s start of by mentioning all of the authors of this book:

Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de la Peña, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Stephanie Perkins, Rainbow Rowell, Laini Taylor and Kiersten White. The book was edited by Stephanie Perkins.

So there are a bunch of authors in here that are in the wind these days. That combined with the gorgeous cover (both the American and the British one. I have the british cover) has made this such a popular book of 2014. And like so many others I chose to read this one around Christmas time.

I don’t read a lot of purely romance novels as I am a fantasy and science fiction kind of gal, but there are some fantasy elements and such in some of these short stories which made me really curious and made it a good read on my part.

I think I went into this one with a little too high expectations because of all the hype that’s been surrounding this book and I did end up a bit disappointed even though I really enjoyed some of the stories. That being said, I think it is amazing that so many fantastic writers can come together to do a project as this one. I love myself some short stories from time to time and I think it was a brave move for them to go all in with this one. Well done! I would love to see more of similar kinds of short story collections.

The stories that I enjoyed the most are:

• Midnights by Rainbow Rowell
• The Lady and The Fox by Kelly Link
• The Girl Who Woke The Dreamer by Laini Taylor

This collection was definitely entertaining but I felt like it had potential for so much more awesomeness!

I ended up giving it a three out of five stars (maybe a 3,5). An easy and light hearted read to get into the Christmas spirit, just don’t expect too much.

One of my favorite quotes:

“She wanted to be free, and if she could never be free, at least she wanted to be brave – brave enough not to sell herself, no matter what the payment, or the cost of refusing.”

 

-Laini Taylor

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Would you like your own copy of My True Love Gave To Me? Click on the logos below:

 

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Do you have any favorite short story collections? I would love to hear your recommendations 🙂

Review – Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park is a love story following two lovestruck sixteen year old misfits. 

Park is half Korean, half white, dresses in dark clothes, listens to punk and loves comic books.

Eleanor is the new girl at school. She’s a bit bigger than all the other girls, her style is weird, she has red hair (with a life of its own) and has a secret.

 

The year is 1986.

While Park comes from a family where his parents love each other very much and even still make out after so many years, Eleanor’s family is a whole other kind of story. She lives with her mother, a violent stepdad and four siblings. All five children are crammed up together in one tiny bedroom, huddling together whenever they are woken up by their mothers screams or their stepfathers yelling.

When Eleanor and Park falls in love with each other, Eleanor knows that her stepdad will never let her have that joy in her life, but she can’t picture a life without Park and Park can’t picture a life without Eleanor either. What are they to do?

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I’ve heard so many great things about this book and finally found the time to read it. This was a quick read for me. I enjoyed the story and could much relate to the weirdness and gingerness of Eleanor. I went into this believing it would be just another cutesy high school romance novel, but Eleanor & Park touches on so many other subjects than that of first love. Bullying, abuse, domestic violence and body image are some of the main themes throughout this book and even though this is a fictional story it hurts to know that the life of Eleanor is ever so real to so many others in this real world.

I’m not one to read a lot of young adult romance novels, but I did enjoy this one quite a lot. I thought it was funny, cute and also shook my heart from time to time (didn’t make me cry though) and I’m giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommend this if you want a lighter but not too mooshy kind of read 🙂

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Eleanor & Park:

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

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If you would like your own copy of Eleanor & Park click on the logos below:

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I hope you enjoyed this review! Please share if you have any thoughts on Eleanor & Park (or anything else) in the comments below 🙂

Till next time, Toodles!