Attachments
"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "
Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.
Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.
When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.
By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?
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Community Reviews
I really enjoyed this even though I typically don’t enjoy whatever genre this is: romance, women’s lit, whatever. I liked all the characters and their friendships and their little struggles. I also live in Nebraska and have become obsessed with local news this year, and the characters work at a local Nebraska newspaper.
I'm not buying what you're selling.
I'm not picking up what you're putting down.
I'm not believing a darn thing in this book even though I fully understand that it is a work of fiction and meant to be a little bit cute and a little bit funny and also meant to be awesome just because it is written by the nearly infamous Rainbow Rowell who everybody and their cat/dog/gerbil loves but who I just can't seem to like/appreciate/jive with on a Saturday night down at the Twist n' Shout and holy cow this is a little bit of a run-on sentence now isn't it?
Now that I have that out of the way, I want to say that I actually liked this book (a little bit). My disappointment may not be in the book itself but rather in the hype that surrounds it. While I will give it to Rowell that she can write (that is to say that she doesn't come across as an uneducated hillbilly with a second grader for an editor), it was mediocre for me at best. Let's do a simple (and equally numbered) pro/con here, shall we? Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
CONS:
Con #1: Who the h-e-double hockey sticks writes e-mails like this to their friends? They might as well have been starting each e-mail with, "Dear Diary, blah blah blah."
Con #2: Lincoln. I get it. You're nerdy, but you're hot. You live with your mom, but you're hot. You can't really talk to women, but you're hot. You're hot, but you're hot. Let me tell you what the guys in our IT department look like. Hot. The actual engineers? SMOKIN'.
Con #3: The Beth appeal. I will admit that I am not a guy. And maybe because I'm not, I don't get why Lincoln was so drawn to Beth. Jennifer was the much kinder, funnier, more BESTER (stop underlining it, spell check - it IS a word) woman of the two if going by the e-mails alone. Men.
PROS:
Pro #1: There are 90s references. I love the 90s, which is admittedly probably only because I grew up in them. I get nostalgic over Super Mario Kart, Clearly Canadian and Blind Melon's No Rain. I remember original Chat Rooms where we pretended we were at pool parties (never in my life did I look so stunning in a bikini).
Pro #2: Midwest references. They went to a bar across the river. Bars in Iowa stayed open until 2:00am. Damn straight. And if you cross the bridge to Illinois, you get another hour.
Pro #3: Beth improvement. There were a couple small moments where I saw a glimmer of hope for Beth not being a complete sack of potatoes and someone I might drink draft beer with in an Iowa (or Illinois) bar.
Not a coincidence, my friend. I've got the arms of a Sicilian grandmother. Arms for picking olives and stirring hearty tomato sauces. Shoulders for carrying buckets of water from the stream to the farmhouse.
It was sometimes cute, hardly ever funny, and almost always fluffy. It was my wake up call that I will not be riding on the Rainbow Rowell express. I'm jumping this ship. I'm aborting this mission. I'm full of more cliches than a Rowell book.
2 Stars
I'm not picking up what you're putting down.
I'm not believing a darn thing in this book even though I fully understand that it is a work of fiction and meant to be a little bit cute and a little bit funny and also meant to be awesome just because it is written by the nearly infamous Rainbow Rowell who everybody and their cat/dog/gerbil loves but who I just can't seem to like/appreciate/jive with on a Saturday night down at the Twist n' Shout and holy cow this is a little bit of a run-on sentence now isn't it?
Now that I have that out of the way, I want to say that I actually liked this book (a little bit). My disappointment may not be in the book itself but rather in the hype that surrounds it. While I will give it to Rowell that she can write (that is to say that she doesn't come across as an uneducated hillbilly with a second grader for an editor), it was mediocre for me at best. Let's do a simple (and equally numbered) pro/con here, shall we? Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
CONS:
Con #1: Who the h-e-double hockey sticks writes e-mails like this to their friends? They might as well have been starting each e-mail with, "Dear Diary, blah blah blah."
Con #2: Lincoln. I get it. You're nerdy, but you're hot. You live with your mom, but you're hot. You can't really talk to women, but you're hot. You're hot, but you're hot. Let me tell you what the guys in our IT department look like. Hot. The actual engineers? SMOKIN'.
Con #3: The Beth appeal. I will admit that I am not a guy. And maybe because I'm not, I don't get why Lincoln was so drawn to Beth. Jennifer was the much kinder, funnier, more BESTER (stop underlining it, spell check - it IS a word) woman of the two if going by the e-mails alone. Men.
PROS:
Pro #1: There are 90s references. I love the 90s, which is admittedly probably only because I grew up in them. I get nostalgic over Super Mario Kart, Clearly Canadian and Blind Melon's No Rain. I remember original Chat Rooms where we pretended we were at pool parties (never in my life did I look so stunning in a bikini).
Pro #2: Midwest references. They went to a bar across the river. Bars in Iowa stayed open until 2:00am. Damn straight. And if you cross the bridge to Illinois, you get another hour.
Pro #3: Beth improvement. There were a couple small moments where I saw a glimmer of hope for Beth not being a complete sack of potatoes and someone I might drink draft beer with in an Iowa (or Illinois) bar.
Not a coincidence, my friend. I've got the arms of a Sicilian grandmother. Arms for picking olives and stirring hearty tomato sauces. Shoulders for carrying buckets of water from the stream to the farmhouse.
It was sometimes cute, hardly ever funny, and almost always fluffy. It was my wake up call that I will not be riding on the Rainbow Rowell express. I'm jumping this ship. I'm aborting this mission. I'm full of more cliches than a Rowell book.
2 Stars
Thank you Rainbow Rowell for writing my life story. I’m not even joking because this is how I spend my work days...IM’ing my bestie about literally everything! Also I’m getting married on Oct 6th of this year which is just so weird because it is one day before the wedding featured in this book. I have never related to a book more. I loved every second of it!
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