Book Review #80: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Hey Guys x

I went back and forth with myself over whether or not to buy this book. The Amazon reviews weren't that great, but the Goodreads reviews were quite good, so in the end I had to weigh that up against the price of the book. Even though I knew that it wouldn't be life-changing, for a book like this, the worst it could be was a bit bland, as I already quite liked the premise.

Lincoln works in the IT department of a newspaper, where his job is to make sure that no one is using the new computers to discuss inappropriate things. Which means that his job is to sit up all night reading the emails of people that he'd never meet. However, when the emails of two women continually get flagged as 'inappropriate', Lincoln starts reading them, and finds that he can't stop. And soon he is entangled in the lives of these women that he's never met, to the point where he thinks he might be falling in love with one of them. But can you really fall in love before first sight?

I was tossing and turning for a long time about whether I was going to review this book or not, but I finished it about an hour ago and decided that there are things that I want to say about it.

So I didn't love this book, and I actually didn't even really like it that much. To be honest, it was just fine, and fine doesn't seem like a good enough reason to write a review of something.

As I said earlier, the worst thing this book could be was a bit bland, and that's exactly what it was. Just a bit... meh.

For a start, the premise of the book is that a man falls in love with a woman based on the emails that she sends to her friend. But I couldn't see anything within the emails that made him fall in love with her. From her emails, he describes her as 'Nice and smart and funny', and I couldn't see anything in the emails that portrayed this. They were all really ordinary emails that you wouldn't really think twice about. So for me, that didn't make sense.

But then this might have something to do with the fact that I found the lives of all of these characters really bland (and I will try to stop using that word). None of these were three-dimensional characters that could stand without the backdrop of this story.

And this is especially true of our main character, Lincoln. He a nice character to read about because there's so little conflict to him, everything is nice and sweet. The only way I can think to describe him is that he's the male version of a Mary Sue character, until we get to the description of him (which happens way too late in the book) and find out that he's this huge, built, extremely handsome guy. Which we would never have known because the way he acts and the way that other characters act around him does not portray this at all. In fact, I found the description of him a bit jarring when compared to how he acts and speaks.

This book is broken down into sections about Lincoln, and the emails between the two girls (called Beth and Jennifer). For me, I found the sections that were just emails a lot more interesting. While I was interested reading about Lincoln's life, after a while it was a bit like 'Lincoln goes home, then he does this, then he does this, and he feels like this, and he thinks about her, and he goes to bed, and he goes to work, and his sister calls' and I got a bit tired of that style after a while.

The email portions were a lot more interesting because you actually got to know the characters of Jennifer and Beth a bit. Their interactions were interesting, you could tell that they were really good friends, and you could feel close to them in a way that you couldn't to Lincoln. In a way, it felt like Lincoln was as isolated from the reader as he was from everyone else in his life. 

What was good?

The book is set in 1999, and it is clear that Rowell knows exactly what time she's writing in. She has done research, and you really feel like you're in the '90s when you're reading it. By extension of this, the world that this book lives in felt extremely real. At no point did I think anything was that unrealistic, other than the description of Lincoln.

What was bad?

I've basically said everything about this book that I didn't really like. But overall, it just never felt like something that I was excited to read, but rather something that I just wanted to get through. It actually took me a really long time to read because there was always something that I'd rather be doing.

Overall

This is a cute story, but it's not that impactful, and it probably won't be the best book you read this year. Nevertheless, if you're looking for something fluffy with virtually no conflict, then you'll probably enjoy this.

2/5 Stars

Lou