Good evening, darlings!
As planned, tonight, I’ll
be reviewing Rainbow Rowell’s book entitled Attachments.
It’s the third book by her which I’ve read. Having been used to her write
characters of my age (aka teenagers and eventual young adults); it’ll be
interesting to see how she now tackles actual adults with stable jobs, new
families and the like.
As usual, I may discuss
certain plot points that may bring about spoilers. I’ll be doing my best to not
let any slip, but if you haven’t read the book, do take caution as well.
Summary: Lincoln O’Neill reads other peoples’ email. But what can he say – it’s part of the job description. As the new office’s “internet security officer”, Lincoln monitors the email of others even if it goes against his own personal code. However, when he finds himself reading through pages and pages of email between Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder, he can’t seem to draw back…
When he finds himself falling for Beth, it’s too late to do anything else.
As I mentioned earlier,
I’m used to the way Rainbow Rowell writes. Her other works entitled Fangirl and Eleanor and Park left me with a good feeling, wanting to read more.
When I heard about Attachments, I knew that I had to read it and set out to
find the book.
To be honest, it took
me a while to actually get into the flow of the book. Usually, I tend to read
without stopping. (It took me a week to finish Fangirl during my Junior year and less to finish Eleanor and Park during the Christmas
break.) However, even with the not-so-stressful beginning of Senior year, I
found myself struggling through the first couple of chapters.
At the beginning of the
book, nearly everything is slow, maybe even dull. The plot would move inch by
inch, switching from Beth and Jennifer’s messages to Lincoln’s struggles and
his own personal life. At times, there would be no pattern at all – it would be
all Lincoln, and then you’d get a pile of Beth and Jennifer before going back
to one chapter for Lincoln – and the cycle would repeat.
Admittedly, this style
of writing doesn’t go well for me. (Which is why I’m having trouble with the A Song of Ice and Fire series, but that’s
another story.) This was one of the factors that contributed to my slow
progression throughout the whole book.
Next was the lifelessness
of Lincoln. I couldn’t get a certain “feel” around him, unlike Rowell’s other
characters in her other books. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint Lincoln with
anything else but “the guy who creepily reads others’ email”. And that would be
a bad thing, usually.
However, this seemed to
have its own purpose as I continued on. Throughout the book, Lincoln had to
find himself and identify his own identity. And as that happened, I could get a
sense of him, no matter how faint or slow that sense was.
One thing that
frustrated me, however, was the (in my point of view) unrealistic ending. I won’t
be giving away details on what happened. It just seems like in a normal
situation, that wouldn’t actually happen. Either that, or there would be a
30-45 percent chance of it actually happening in real life.
Despite these small drawbacks,
I generally enjoyed the book, more so the way Lincoln had to break away from
what held him back in order to move on to something greater. I like how he was
able to come clean – not only with others, but with himself as well.
Overall, it was a nice
read. It may start off slow, but Attachments definitely has its own moments. Although it doesn’t quite impact me as much as Fangirl did, Rowell still manages to capture the romantic aura that
supports the book. Attachments shows
that no matter how close in proximity two strangers are, there’s still the
definite possibility of letting him or her slip past your fingers, intertwined
with the road to self-discovery.
Final Rating:
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