Landline: Take in combination with Greg Laswell song of the same name. Writer's orders.

It’s no secret around these parts that I’m a fan of this Rainbow lady. Thanks to my continued association with people who have their fingers on the pulse of literature (pretty sure this all started with Raych, but then of course it was Alice who enthusiasm-ed Rainbow into being our friend), I got in on the ground floor with Attachments and have since happily ridden the elevator up, first to Eleanor & Park and then to Fangirl.

But the floor I arrived at when I pressed the button marked Landline was something altogether different from the others, because instead of being a place full of beanbag chairs where I could drink a sugary coffee beverage and watch young people lovingly tousle each other's hair, there was a full bar and arm chairs with permanent dips for my bum. For me, it was present (with a hint of future) tense.

Help yourself to a whiskey.

Georgie and Neal have been married for about 15 years and have two young daughters and a home in Los Angeles. They’ve grown complacent in their relationship, finding endless distractions in their girls and in Georgie’s work as a sitcom writer. But all the things they haven’t been saying to each other have been piling up, as they do, the distance yawning imperceptibly wider, as it does, and when Georgie chooses to pursue an important career opportunity rather than visit Neal’s family for Christmas, the distance becomes literal. Neal takes the girls and goes to Omaha anyway, leaving Georgie at first in denial that anything is wrong and then completely uncertain about where their relationship stands.

And then the story takes a turn for the fantastical. When Georgie calls Neal from the landline in her childhood home, she discovers that she can talk to the Neal of 15 years ago, before they decided to get married. As Present Georgie talks more and more to Past Neal, she starts to wonder whether this is her chance to change history . . . and if she even wants to.

NO PRESSURE.

This story hit me pretty hard in a personal way. Maybe it's because I'm a lot like Georgie—domestically challenged, career-driven, inclined to pick the most saturated color on the paint sample card. Maybe it's because my husband is a lot like Neal—a better cook than he has any right to be, quiet with his emotions, big with his romantic gestures. I also have a mother who's obsessed with her pug, and we also live in Silver Lake (technically Echo Park, but that's just semantics and roughly 15% less hipsters).

Or maybe it's because he was literally digging himself into a hole while I was reading the first half of the book.

No but really.

We're coming up on 4 years of marriage, which is exactly the number of years we were together before the wedding. But marriage, guys . . . it's this whole other THING. And, unsurprisingly, Rainbow captures that flawlessly:

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.

It's not all introspection and married-people angst. The secondary players in Georgie's life (her mom, stepdad, sister, close friend and writing partner, daughters, and more) don't seem to have any idea that they're secondary, because Rainbow doesn't ever treat them that way. And of course there's playful banter. Of course there is.

"She reclaimed her virginity?"

 "Leave it, Georgie. She can do whatever she wants with her virginity."

"Right," Georgie said, nodding her head. "Right . . . It doesn't sound like such a bad idea, actually. Maybe I'll reclaim mine before you come back. In the name of Queen Elizabeth."

Subliminal messages in the Harry Potter books, obvs.

Fangirl: How do you feel about being compared to Joss Whedon?

These posts about various Rainbow Rowell books are gonna start getting RULL obligatory pretty soon, because she’s gonna keep on writing fantastic books and I’m gonna keep on loving them. And there are only so many ways to say that you love a thing. Eventually, I’ll just be posting a picture of the book cover followed by several exclamation points and a hearts-for-eyes emoticon.

I will say, one thing that made Fangirl particularly special for me was my ongoing Twitter discussion with Rainbow regarding her theories about the subtextual romance between a certain boy wizard and his pale-haired, pointy-faced adversary.

One of the tamer depictions...because it's Wednesday afternoon.

So when we meet Cath and she’s writing a popular fanfiction series featuring two characters in the magical Simon Snow universe who happen to be sworn enemies and also both of the male persuasion, it’s even more of an “I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE” if you happen to know that tidbit about the real-life author.

About Cath. She’s a freshman, an extreme introvert, and the identical twin of an uber-extrovert. The only reason she even left her hometown to go to college was to stay near her sister, Wren. But Wren wants to break out of the twin box and meet new people . . . and she wants a roommate who isn’t Cath, for the first time in their lives. And thank goodness for that, because then we get Reagan—Cath’s sarcastic, cynical, slightly older, much more worldly roommate (who, coincidentally, reminds me of a grown-up version of Eleanor from Eleanor & Park). And with Reagan comes Levi, an always-smiling, tousle-haired country boy whose been Reagan's friend since childhood and who ends up in Cath and Reagan’s room an AWFUL lot. And we, the readers, don’t complain even a little (please refer again to description of Levi if confused about this).

All the elements I’ve come to associate with a Rowell novel are here: A wide variety of fleshed-out and relatable characters, tingly-in-your-belly boy-meets-girl scenarios, a particular boy character who makes you just REALLY upset that you can’t reach in and grab people off the pages of books (GET ON THAT, SCIENCE), a little bit of serious to balance out the sweet, and snappy exchanges of dialogue.

Rainbow’s talent with clever dialogue that doesn’t feel forced is one of my favorite things about her writing. I’ve come to think of her as the Joss Whedon of novels, and for anyone who’s seen Firefly and all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is all of you . . . *narrows eyes*) that should be fairly self-explanatory. But FINE, I’ll give you examples.

“What about him?” she’d say, finding an attractive guy to point out while they were standing in the lunch line. “Do you want to kiss him?”

“I don’t want to kiss a stranger,” Cath would answer. “I’m not interested in lips out of context.” (p. 85)

 

Reagan was sitting on Cath’s desk when Cath woke up.

“Are you awake?”

“Have you been watching me sleep?”

“Yes, Bella. Are you awake?” (p. 286)

 

 “Look at you. All sweatered up. What are those, leg sweaters?”

“They’re leg warmers.”

“You’re wearing at least four different kinds of sweater.”

“This is a scarf.”

“You look tarred and sweatered.” (p. 91)

 Cue the message from our sponsors (we have no sponsors): Look for Rainbow Rowell’s next book, Landline, due out . . . sometime next spring/summer.

Eleanor & Park: Emergency circle time for discussion of my feelings

I have three other books to write things about, but Eleanor & Park is just one of those books that you have to talk about immediately . . . with anyone who will listen. This is the reason people HAVE book blogs. Because sometimes the people in your everyday life just don’t really care to hear about how tingly a school bus hand-holding scene made you feel (SUPER tingly . . . and at Sunday brunch, too).

My eggs got all cold and rubbery.

Quick summary: It’s the mid-’80s in Omaha, Nebraska. Eleanor is the new girl in school. She has unruly wine-red hair, a less-than-ideal home life, and a unique personal style that would probably be cool in a John Hughes movie but just makes her an easy target in the real world. She also has an ample figure. “At sixteen, Eleanor was already built like she ran a medieval pub” (p. 18).

Eleanor does not yet know this.

Park is probably the only Asian boy in town, but he grew up there and is well liked. He has excellent taste in comic books (if the character likes Batman, I like the character), terrible taste in friends, an insatiable appetite for new and varied music, and a pretty great home life.

Eleanor has just appeared on the bus for the first time, amid cruel jeering and a general lack of welcome from her peers. After a long, awkward walk down the bus aisle, she has reluctantly taken the only empty seat toward the back of the bus, right next to Park, who makes room for her with equal reluctance. Thus begins the story of a high school relationship, told from the alternating firsthand perspectives of Eleanor and Park.

There are two things about this book that make it universally readable, although it is technically of the young adult variety: (1) its overall ability to replicate the feeling of first love, complete with agony and ecstasy, and (2) the theme of self-perception, and how frequently off the mark it is.

At one point in the book, Eleanor and Park are in their English class and their teacher asks Park why he thinks Romeo and Juliet is still so widely read today. Park's answer is something along the lines of, "Because people want to remember what it feels like to fall in love." Even if it's all-consuming, ill-advised love. Even if it IS Big Will's commentary on the foolishness and selfishness of youth (it is). We just want to feel the butterflies.

Do you remember how popular Twilight was? Of course not. That was ages ago. But it was popular for EXACTLY this reason. As poorly written as it was, it pretty expertly captured that swept-away, can't-sleep, can't-eat, can't-bother-being-human-anymore feeling of epic, hormonal, I-need-you-now love. I remember. I was reading it on a plane, with my mom sitting next to me. And I missed my boyfriend a LOT. If you know what I mean.

Well Eleanor & Park does the same thing. But with smart writing that doesn't make you want to go back in time and prevent Stephenie Meyer from learning to read. ("No storytime for you, little girl!")

The other big excellent thing about this book is the way we learn, through the alternating perspectives, that the way Eleanor sees herself is nowhere near how Park sees her. And vice versa. If we take Eleanor's word for it, she's disgusting. Is she a flawless goddess sent from heaven above? Truly . . . no. But she's so much more beautiful than she feels on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, so maybe this isn't news. We usually aren't the best judges of ourselves, because we can't be trusted not to judge too harshly. But at almost 28, I STILL need to be reminded of this daily. Just because I quite frequently feel like an eel in a skin suit doesn't mean that's how anyone else sees me. And did I hope that I would be done feeling this way once I was a grown-up lady? Absolutely. I counted on it. But we never grow out of our insecurities. We just deal with them the best we can. And a good book can help with that.

So if you like being visited by the butterflies and also reading words that are put together nicely and also being reminded that you're not a hideous freak, give this a go.

And if you want a smart vampire/human love story . . .

Attachments: SURPRISE I LOVED IT (no one is surprised)

In case you were wondering, writing about a book that all my favorite book-type friends loved long before I did and that I ALSO loved when I finally got around to reading it is HARD. I’m tempted just to say YES IT IS FANTASTIC, pop in a Jennifer Lawrence GIF, and have an ice cream.

But here’s why you're not looking at J-Law making a saucy face right now: YES, everyone has read and loved this book, but did we all love it for the same reasons? Mostly, probably . . . yes. But the first note I scribbled down when I was reading was about the journalism aspect. Because the characters all work at a newspaper, and I was like I CAN IDENTIFY. And we were best friends from that day forward.

That first noteworthy thing for me was this:

Regardless, TV journalists don’t count; cute is their job. There’s no reason to look pretty in print journalism. Readers don’t care if you’re cute. (p. 77)

To which I exclaimed, “Oh HELLO, truthy statement about print vs. broadcast journalism. THE WAR WAGES ON.”

And we have HER on our side, so good LUCK to you.

When I was in journalism school, our classes were in the same building as the broadcast journalism classes, and sometimes we ended up in the hallway at the same time waiting for our classes to open . . . and the contrast was remarkable, let me tell you. Exhausted budding alcoholics with rings under their eyes on the right, freshly spackled smoothie-drinking folks on the left. I’m generalizing, but I'm probably drunk right now so what do I know.

Oh did you want to know what this book is about? WELL. Jennifer is a Features copy editor and Beth is a movie reviewer at The Courier, a small Midwestern paper. It’s 1999, and the paper has just entered the digital age, with Internet access for reporters and internal e-mail. Because Internet equals PORN, this advancement necessitates the presence of a person whose job it is to monitor Internet use and employee e-mails for abuses of the privilege. Enter Lincoln, a 28-year-old complacent sort who lives with his mother. The thing is, Beth and Jennifer misuse the HELL out of the internal e-mail, and their messages keep getting filtered into Lincoln’s folder of suspicious e-mails. So he reads them. And then he keeps reading them. And he can't bring himself to issue them a warning. Because he's starting to like them. And maybe even love one of them.

Like You've Got Mail...but only one person's got mail.

The format goes back and forth from Lincoln’s narrative to e-mails between Beth and Jennifer, and in this tidy way, the plot progresses. It’s charming and light but still makes you feel some real-life feels.

I identified so fully with Beth and Jennifer that I sometimes had to remind myself which was which when I was reading their back-and-forths (until Jennifer said she didn’t care about Batman; that was a rocky point in our relationship).

And Lincoln. He’s that quietly spectacular sort of man that we all HOPE we deserve. This was the precise moment when I loved him, talking to a girl at a noisy club:

“Well, you came here to meet somebody, right? To meet a guy?” 

“Right.” 

“To maybe meet the guy, right?” 

She looked down at her drink. “Right.” 

“Well, when you think about that guy—who, by the way, we both know isn’t me—when you think about meeting him, do you think about meeting him in a place like this? In a place this ugly? This loud? Do you want him to smell like Jägermeister and cigarettes? Do you want your first dance to be to a song about strippers?” (p. 52)

Only if SHE'S there.