I've been trying to think of a way to describe my feelings for Rainbow Rowell's Landline for literally hours. And I just...can't. Every thing I write seems insufficient to explain my feelings for the book. So I'm going to try something a bit different for this review. This is gonna get a little personal.
Dear Rainbow Rowell,
It's been a year. One year, more or less exactly, since I read Eleanor & Park -- the first book of yours that I read. I had recently been let go from a job which I didn't adore, but I'd been hoping to work at for at least two years, and I was working an extremely part-time minimum wage job. Eleanor & Park made me like life again. It was five months until I read another one of your books. I had found a full time job which I adored, but it was Christmas / New Year's time, and I was spending it all away from my family for the first time in my life. I'd received a copy of Fangirl for Christmas (which I was ecstatic about) and I decided to start reading it. Fangirl reminded me of all the different paths life can take, and that I'm not alone in keeping up on online activities which I'm sure my parents thought I would leave behind in high school. It reminded me that I happiness might come from weird sources, but as long as I'm happy it shouldn't matter. I read Attachments in May. It reminded me that some people take their time to find love, and that it's okay if I'm one of them. Maybe someone's loving me from afar (which is not as good as loving me from up close in my opinion, but it still makes me feel better about myself).
And now Landline. I've been feeling really terrible about life lately. Yes, I got into my only choice for graduate programs, but I'm trying to move from Montana to Massachusetts, and it's really hard. And I'm living alone at the moment which I only enjoy so much. And I'm still single. And I wanted so badly for this year to be better than the year before. But I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and not going anywhere in life. And Landline just came at a perfect time. I felt Georgie's discontent and her confusion. How do you figure out where you went wrong in life when it just seems to be a perpetual downward slide? And how do you make sure that the people you love know you love them? And how do you live without someone you love (or someone to love)?
I just feel like your books save me from myself every time. You are my favorite author. And I think that's why it took me almost a year to read your three books before Landline. I knew I could only read them for the first time once. They've all taken spots on my favorites shelf, so they'll be reread and recommended and loved. But first reads are always a little bit different than rereads, aren't they? So thank you for Landline. And for everything else you've written and will write.
Forever Grateful,
Hayley
TL;DR Landline is amazing and fantastic and you should all read it.
Favorite Quotes: "Don't pigeonhole me, Georgie. I'm infinite."
"I always knew you were you."
"You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten--in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems."
Comments
Post a Comment