Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell!

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell follows the story of Lincoln, our loveable introverted internet safety officer, whose job involves making sure other employees are actually doing the work they are paid to do. The year is 1999, and Lincoln is working at a newspaper office, reading through people’s emails to make sure they aren’t using their work time for personal matters. But Lincoln is lonely, working the night shift in a monotonous job, so when Beth and Jennifer’s personal emails pop up in his filter for the use of inappropriate language he decides they aren’t harming anyone, and lets them off without a warning. And then does it again. And again. And again.

Lincoln, however much he tries to deny it, now looks forward to seeing Beth and Jennifer’s humorous email exchanges in his filter, but soon realises he is growing an odd sense of attachment to Beth and her anecdotes. Knowing it is now too late to send the two women a warning (because how would he explain why they had never been sent one before?) Lincoln must decide if his yearning to meet Beth in real life is worth the possible drama it may incur (after all, you can’t just approach someone and admit you’ve been reading their emails for the best part of a year, can you?)

This book is told in two ways; we have Lincoln’s story told through third person point of view, with Beth and Jennifer’s story told through their daily email exchanges. This book is around 350 pages, as far as I can remember, but in addition to it being extremely easy to read it’s also a breeze because at least 1/3 of this book is in email format, which makes this book appear longer then it actually is.

I started reading this book expecting romance. I should have been expecting friendship. This book is all about friendships, and relationships, such as the one between Beth and Jennifer or the ones that Lincoln slowly makes with his work colleges over the course of this book. (Minor spoiler ahead) Lincoln starts this book unhappy with his life and ends it surrounded by people he knows. He becomes a more confident person, not because of Beth or a romantic relationship of any kind, but because he starts deciding to put himself out more, talking to more people, creating friendships and bonds. Lincoln was an extremely endearing character- I definitely rooted for him throughout this book. (Spoilers over).

It’s taken me almost a year to pick up another Rainbow Rowell book after reading, and loving, Fangirl last summer. I honestly don’t know why it’s taken so long. This book was adorable and meaningful all at once, and it made me immensely happy. It’s classed as an adult book (because of Lincoln’s age), but it’s pretty PG-13. I would definitely highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a summery contemporary!

I’m giving this book 4.5/5 ice creams (I actually finished this book over two weeks ago, and my rating for this book hasn’t changed at all since finishing it, unlike most books I read), it was incredibly sweet and warm, and showed a lot of important character development.