Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments is another fantastic book by Rainbow Rowell (who I actually met and got her to sign my copy of Fangirl!) Attachments is about a twenty-something named Lincoln O'Neill who starts working as a Tech guy for a Newspaper and one of his jobs is to monitor the emails that employees send out. That's how he "meets" Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder, by reading their emails they send back and forth. So that's a little creepy, but it endears me to Lincoln because he really is just that awkward about people and he genuinely feels bad about reading their emails and invading their privacy.

Lincoln feels stuck in life. Stuck with where he is and has no room to grow and do something else which is really relatable to me at this juncture in life and he sees a bit of a kindred spirit in Beth who feels the same. She's stuck in a dead end relationship with a musician. (Rule #23 of Amanda's Rules for life: Don't date musicians.) Her boyfriend is also kind of a jerk (Rule #3: Don't date assholes or "fixer-uppers") but sometimes he's a bit endearing which makes it hard to decided if I want Lincoln and Beth together or if I want this tragic stalking to end with them never having met face-to-face.

As the story progresses we learn more about Beth and Jennifer. Like Jennifer is struggling in her marriage because she's afraid of taking the plunge and becoming a parent, though ultimately she does get pregnant and Beth is a bridesmaid in her sister's wedding which brings up a lot of conversation about how she isn't married and her relationship with the musician (whose name escapes me so we're going to call him Bill because I am unimaginative.) So Beth's sister's wedding put a lot of stress on Beth and Bill's relationship.

Meanwhile Lincoln starts to get the hang of adulthood (WHAT ARE THE SECRETS OF IT LINCOLN TELL ME!) He moves out of his parents house and quits his job to get one he actually wants to have and doesn't hate. But before he leaves he writes a note to Beth explaining that he has been reading their emails, that he's sorry and knows it was wrong but that they should probably stop sending emails to each other at work. The books starts to wind down and I'm fearful that my ship won't sail and it's just one of those bitter life lessons we learn about unrequited love and how to respect privacy in this modern age but then ships ahoy! Beth and Lincoln meet in real life when she's at a movie theatre to review a movie and he's there to watch the movie for funsies! So they have a pseudo date which leads to a real relationship!

I really enjoyed Attachments by Rainbow Rowell and I look forward to reading more of her books.