Modern Romance, Email Style

Lately, my coworkers and I have been on a Rainbow Rowell kick. Mainly they hand me books and I read them. Well Attachments by Rainbow Rowell was a charming modern quirky romance. It’s the kind of book that is a perfect chick flick romance. You can picture the characters in your mind’s eye, and they kind of seem like your best friends that you've never actually met.

Lincoln is a 28 year old IT guy at a newspaper. Actually, his main job description is email security. He’s the guy who has to monitor company emails when certain words or phrases are detected. Think of him as big brother. Lincoln hates that he’s an email rat, spying on his coworkers, but it pays the bills. One night while he’s working, he runs across an email chain between Beth and Jennifer and everything changes. Instead of sending them a warning email, he continues reading their flagged emails. Beth and Jennifer are hilarious and help Lincoln feel a connection. Soon, however, he wants not just to spy on them, but to know them. One of them in particular.

I enjoyed this book. I felt for the characters, wanted them to meet and laughed at their exchanges. Lincoln, Beth, and Jennifer are all wondering about the next step in their lives. They’re all in their late 20s, college educated, missing something, and unsure of what to do next. Now maybe this is a theme that resonates with all age groups, but as a twenty something this story held water with me. After college, we all think life will be sweet, we’ll roll in the dough, our significant other will show up and marry us, and all those amazing plans we have will actually happen. Then things don’t go as planned or our plans aren't what we imagined. It feels like you have no idea what you’re doing. This is where Lincoln's life has ended up. Jennifer and Beth are questioning their lives and plans too. These characters are imperfect and lovely.

An interesting aspect of the book is the relationship Lincoln forms with Jennifer and Beth before ever meeting them. Isn't this the same relationship we form with characters in books? The major difference being that characters in books don’t actually exist whereas, Lincoln’s email delinquents do in his world. Just like Lincoln, we fall in love with overheard conversations, we want to meet and be a part of the lives of our favorite characters and yet there’s a barrier between our world and theirs.

I enjoyed the anticipation in this book. The audience waits for Lincoln to meet Beth and Jennifer. We look forward to him figuring out his social life, career choices, and living situation. It was an easy read. I looked forward to curling up with it and wishing that I had a guy as adorable as Lincoln to stalk my emails.

You Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming

Never date a military man. That is the lesson "You Know When the Men are Gone" by Siobhan Fallon taught me. The book is a collection of short, loosely tied together stories. They are all about the relationships of military personnel and the families of these persons. Perspectives change from story to story, but the themes run deep from frustration, fear, hurt, heartbreak, hope, loss, disappointment, love, and longing as individuals make their way through their deployment or that of a loved one in Iraq.

The stories circle around Fort Hood, a military base in Texas, where wives wait for their men to return from war. The men overseas dream about the women who they believe are yearning for them. Here is a book that opens your eyes to the complications of living an army life and the strain it puts on personal relationships. How fragile relationships are and how even the strongest men have weaknesses. The one thing you think you can rely on, your love and family, become twisted and complicated. It's not just the distance affecting the relationship and sometimes love isn't enough to make it work.

This is a fascinating read. Fallon held my attention from page to page, story to story. One of my worries was having to get to know each new narrator, but I found myself drawn into each character. The stories are captivating. Since the author is a woman, I expected all the stories to be from the female perspective, but was happily surprised to find many stories from the male point of view as well. However, you could tell that this is a woman writing because the stories got into the emotional world of each character in a way that I rarely see men tap into. You won't want to put this one down. I highly suggest reading it.