#39: Rainbow Rowell, Landline
Nov. 4th, 2014 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareila posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
kareila_booksOne thing that I've realized about Rainbow Rowell's protagonists, adult and teen alike, is that they share a tendency toward nerdiness and awkwardness. Georgie is a comedy nerd with a huge library of 70's sitcoms on VHS. She and her writing partner, Seth, have a dream of starting a hit TV show of their own. But Georgie isn't married to Seth, a too-pretty boy who has a series of disposable girlfriends. She's married to Neal, who is the brooding, silent type - which is where the awkwardness comes in.
When the story starts, Georgie is buried in her work in LA, and Neal takes their kids to his family's house in Omaha for Christmas without her. When she can't reach him on the phone, she starts to freak out that their marriage is over. That's when the magic starts to happen - she discovers that although she's not able to talk to Neal in the present, her mother's landline phone is somehow able to call Neal 15 years in the past, the week before he asked her to marry him.
As a veteran of 15+ years of marriage myself, it was easy for me to sympathize with both Georgie and Neal as Georgie revisits their courtship and tries to figure out what to do. Although if I had a phone to the past, I don't think I would have been able to resist urging my spouse to buy stock in Apple and Google.
When the story starts, Georgie is buried in her work in LA, and Neal takes their kids to his family's house in Omaha for Christmas without her. When she can't reach him on the phone, she starts to freak out that their marriage is over. That's when the magic starts to happen - she discovers that although she's not able to talk to Neal in the present, her mother's landline phone is somehow able to call Neal 15 years in the past, the week before he asked her to marry him.
As a veteran of 15+ years of marriage myself, it was easy for me to sympathize with both Georgie and Neal as Georgie revisits their courtship and tries to figure out what to do. Although if I had a phone to the past, I don't think I would have been able to resist urging my spouse to buy stock in Apple and Google.
