Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

I'm now almost all caught up on the Rainbow Rowell books. I just have Landline to go before she comes out with another one.

I read Eleanor & Park first and that was so adorable that it was really hard to live up to the level of expectation that it set. Then I read Fangirl, which was pretty great, but not as great as Eleanor & Park. Now I've just finished reading Attachments and it's my least favorite of the three, and I think that may be entirely because of the ending.

I really enjoyed most of the book. It's about a guy who is hired by a newspaper to read the emails that get flagged by the security system and send a warning to whoever sent the message. He starts reading the emails that two women (Beth and Jennifer) send back and forth. He never brings himself to send them a warning, and once he realizes that he's never going to send them a warning, he knows he should stop reading their emails, what with the invasion of privacy and all.

But he can't, and I can totally understand that. He gets wrapped up in the communication between these two best friends and I don't think it's any wonder that he was unable to make himself stop reading. To be clear, he only read the emails that were flagged by the security system. He had access to all of their emails, but he did have the decency not to cross that line. It may be a minor distinction, but personally, I think it's a pretty important one.

So the main character (Lincoln) starts to fall in love with one of the women (Beth) by reading their correspondence. There are two problems with this: 1) Beth has a live-in boyfriend, and 2) how do you explain to someone that you want to date them because you've secretly been reading their personal emails?

It's a pretty tricky situation, and although, like I said, I can totally believe that Lincoln got himself in that mess without actually being a super creepy cyber stalker, I'm still not entirely sure that Beth would be able to just get over it and start making out with him in a movie theater.

That's not to say that Rowell let them off easy. They had to talk it through and admit that it was pretty weird, but I would have expected Beth to need at least a little more convincing. How do you approach a guy you barely know who knows all about your personal life, like your last break-up?