Review: Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Landline
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: ARC from BEA 2014
Review by: Jenn

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.
Maybe that was always besides 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 to 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?

4.5 stars out of 5 stars

There's just something about Rainbow Rowell's words and the world she creates that completely captivates me. With every book she writes, I fall more and more in love with her writing. She writes characters that are so well developed that I can see them clearly in my mind. They feel like real, authentic people, people who you know in real life and can quite possibly be yourself.

Landline completely sucked me in as I followed Georgie McCool's journey. Georgie has to deal with the repercussion of having to choose between her family and her job when she has the opportunity of the lifetime for her dream job. What follows is such a unique twist to how she tries to save her marriage and do her job.

I want to say everything about this book but I know I can't fully say it without butchering the story. I know of other bloggers and reviewers out there that can probably tell you all about the story but what I can tell you about is how it made me feel. There's this passage in the book that I'm about to quote and I just want for you to be prepared for it. It made such an impression on me and I know I will probably carry that with me for the rest of my life. Here it is:

You don't know when you're twenty-three.
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 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. - Rainbow Rowell, Landline, pg 201 from ARC

I'm not married yet but I am in a serious relationship where we've talked about marriage and while we can plan our future like any couple, I never thought about it like Georgie did in that quote. How two lives can become so tangled to the point that you can't imagine being separated like that. I love how Rainbow managed to fully get that point across. She wrote that just so beautifully and clear and it another reason why I love her writing.

I've read all but one of Rainbow's books, just missing Attachments, and all of them have left an impression on me. I love Landline and everything it represented. It so honest about how two people can love each other but still not truly happy with each other and the choices they make. If you have yet to pick up a Rainbow's book, although I have no idea why you would hesitate but whatever, I urge to please pick up Landline.