Landline
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#1 New York Times bestselling author! A New York Times Best Seller! Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Fiction of 2014! An Indie Next Pick!
From New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell, comes a hilarious, heart-wrenching take on love, marriage, and magic phones.
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 beside the point now.
Maybe that was always beside 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 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?
show more
From New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell, comes a hilarious, heart-wrenching take on love, marriage, and magic phones.
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 beside the point now.
Maybe that was always beside 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 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?
show more
Product details
- Hardback | 320 pages
- 163 x 243 x 28mm | 499g
- 08 Jul 2014
- St. Martin's Press
- New York, United States
- English
- 1250049377
- 9781250049377
- 98,386
Review quote
"The magic phone becomes Ms. Rowell's way to rewrite 'It's a Wonderful Life'...what that film accomplished with an angel named Clarence, Ms. Rowell accomplishes with a quaint old means of communication, and for her narrative purposes, it really does the trick." --The New York Times
"While the topic might have changed, this is still Rowell--reading her work feels like listening to your hilariously insightful best friend tell her best stories." --Library Journal, starred review on Landline
"Her characters are instantly lovable, and the story moves quickly...the ending manages to surprise and satisfy all at once. Fans will love Rowell's return to a story close to their hearts." --Kirkus Reviews on Landline
"Rowell is, as always, a fluent and enjoyable writer--the pages whip by." --Publishers Weekly on Landline
"Keen psychological insight, irrepressible humor and a supernatural twist: a woman can call her husband in the past." --Time Magazine on Landline
Rowell pulls off this impossible premise with great charm, and her depictions of the couple's sweet courtship and their later compromise-filled marriage are equally unsentimental and knowing. --Curtis Sittenfeld for The New Yorker
"The dialogue flows naturally; it's zippy, funny, and fresh. The flirtation between young Georgie and Neal is genuinely romantic." --Boston Globe
"After the blazing successes of Eleanor & Park, Fangirl and Attachments, it's become clear that Rowell is an absolute master of rendering emotionally authentic and absorbing stories...While the novel soars in its more poignant moments, Rowell injects the proper dose of humor to keep you laughing through your tears." --RT Book Reviews on Landline
"To skip her work because of its rom-com sheen would be to miss out on the kind of swift, canny honesty of that passage, which is typical of the pleasures of Landline -- it's a book that's a joy from sentence to sentence, and on that intimate level there's absolutely nothing unoriginal or clichéd in the way Rowell thinks. Her work is dense with moments of sharp observation...and humor." --Chicago Tribune Printers Row
"But a focus on the endings is the wrong one when you're reading a book of Rowell's. What matters most are the middles, which she packs with thoughtful dissections of how we live today, reflections upon the many ways in which we can love and connect as humans, and tacit reassurances of the validity of our feelings regardless of our particular experiences." --Slate.com on Landline
"Landline might not have any teenage protagonists, but it does have all the pleasures of Rowell's YA work -- immediate writing that's warm and energetic" --Time.com
"More gentle, more real than Douglas Coupland, more smooth and also more clever than Helen Fielding. Truly, slowly, sweetly gorgeous." --The Globe & Mail
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"While the topic might have changed, this is still Rowell--reading her work feels like listening to your hilariously insightful best friend tell her best stories." --Library Journal, starred review on Landline
"Her characters are instantly lovable, and the story moves quickly...the ending manages to surprise and satisfy all at once. Fans will love Rowell's return to a story close to their hearts." --Kirkus Reviews on Landline
"Rowell is, as always, a fluent and enjoyable writer--the pages whip by." --Publishers Weekly on Landline
"Keen psychological insight, irrepressible humor and a supernatural twist: a woman can call her husband in the past." --Time Magazine on Landline
Rowell pulls off this impossible premise with great charm, and her depictions of the couple's sweet courtship and their later compromise-filled marriage are equally unsentimental and knowing. --Curtis Sittenfeld for The New Yorker
"The dialogue flows naturally; it's zippy, funny, and fresh. The flirtation between young Georgie and Neal is genuinely romantic." --Boston Globe
"After the blazing successes of Eleanor & Park, Fangirl and Attachments, it's become clear that Rowell is an absolute master of rendering emotionally authentic and absorbing stories...While the novel soars in its more poignant moments, Rowell injects the proper dose of humor to keep you laughing through your tears." --RT Book Reviews on Landline
"To skip her work because of its rom-com sheen would be to miss out on the kind of swift, canny honesty of that passage, which is typical of the pleasures of Landline -- it's a book that's a joy from sentence to sentence, and on that intimate level there's absolutely nothing unoriginal or clichéd in the way Rowell thinks. Her work is dense with moments of sharp observation...and humor." --Chicago Tribune Printers Row
"But a focus on the endings is the wrong one when you're reading a book of Rowell's. What matters most are the middles, which she packs with thoughtful dissections of how we live today, reflections upon the many ways in which we can love and connect as humans, and tacit reassurances of the validity of our feelings regardless of our particular experiences." --Slate.com on Landline
"Landline might not have any teenage protagonists, but it does have all the pleasures of Rowell's YA work -- immediate writing that's warm and energetic" --Time.com
"More gentle, more real than Douglas Coupland, more smooth and also more clever than Helen Fielding. Truly, slowly, sweetly gorgeous." --The Globe & Mail
show more
About Rainbow Rowell
RAINBOW ROWELL lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband and two sons. She's also the author of Fangirl, Eleanor & Park, and Attachments.
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Our customer reviews
Georgie is a writer for a popular tv show. When she has to work over the holiday season, her husband and daughters take residence in his family's home in Omaha, leaving Georgie home to work with her co-worker and best friend. Through a magical phone that appears to hold the secrets to the past, she discovers which is more important to her, her work or her family.
Landline is an interesting book to say the least. I was gripped by Rainbow's writing this time around and I wanted to know if Georgie would choose her work or her family. This problem is relevant in our modern day and age where working mothers struggle to do both. I like the fact that she's the breadwinner in this case. I don't like the fact that she had to apologize for wanting to pursue her dream and go after it. Who says that you have to devote all your time to one thing over the other? It's always best to balance both aspects so no one loses. This is what Georgie struggles through. Landline is also a book about marriage. What it takes to stay there, what it takes to want to stay in a relationship etc. I thought it was wonderfully written. I loved seeing Georgie and Neal fall in love. What I didn't fully understand was the phone. How in the world did it work? Was it just her imagination? I passed it off as her trying to comprehend her situation. And more importantly, that she missed her husband so much that she ended up talking to him through a phone that connected to the past.
Overall, I would recommend this one for its beautiful writing and touching moments, it's another one to add to your Rowell collection. Also, that cover..I LOVE it.show more
by Giselle SM
Quick Blurb:
Georgie McCoolâ??s career is finally taking off. Sheâ??s a TV writer finally being given the chance to pitch her own show. Itâ??s perfect. But it couldnâ??t be worst timing. Her marriage is crumbing. She knows it. Her husband, Neal, knows it. Itâ??s been in trouble for longer than itâ??s been okay, really.
When Georgie tells Neal that she canâ??t go to Omaha for Christmas because of her big break, she doesnâ??t expect him to pack up anyway. But he does. Neal takes their two little girls and heads to Omaha without her. Sheâ??s left wondering if her marriage is finally done.
Georgie discovers a strange way to communicate with Neal. Itâ??s a phone that allows her to talk to a much younger version of her husbandâ??a Neal in college, during those first few precious years of their relationship. Itâ??s not time travel. Not really.
Itâ??s a chance for Georgie to fix her marriage or stop it before it even begins.
My Thoughts:
This book is one of my top ten favorite booksâ??literally.
I canâ??t quite put my finger on the why. Maybe itâ??s the fact that Iâ??m the same age as the younger versions of Georgie and Neal. I understand their perspectives. But really I think itâ??s because I completely and one hundred percent agree with the portrayal of love in this book.
Love isnâ??t this shiny beautiful creation between two people. It isnâ??t clean. Thereâ??s nothing certain about it. There is no formulaâ??no equation two people can follow to reach a foolproof magical ending.
The scary thing is that sometimes love isnâ??t enough. Itâ??s complicated. Itâ??s messy and uncertain.
Love is realizing that maybe what you have with someone else isnâ??t enough to make a perfect relationship, but you barrel ahead anyway, knowing that you only have part of the equation figured out.
Itâ??s realizing that being **** scared and uncertain is sometimes the best youâ??re going to get.
Love is taking that riskâ??embracing the uncertaintiesâ??dealing with the fact that it isnâ??t perfect, not even closeâ??but making it work nonetheless. Because at the end of the day, all that good, all that love, itâ??s better than the bad. Maybe.
But itâ??s all you get in loveâ??a maybe.
You love the person more than you hate everything else. Thatâ??s the love Rowell captures in this book. And itâ??s perfect.
I honestly donâ??t have anything remotely bad to say about this book. Itâ??s my favorite of Rainbow Rowellâ??s (and I completely adore all of her books). But this one holds a special place for me.
I guess youâ??ll just have to trust me and check it out yourself to see why.show more
by Ryann Dannelly
