Courtesy of Beaverdale Books
‘Attachments'
Reviewed by Alice Meyer
By Rainbow Rowell
Dutton Books
4/14/2011
336 pp
$25.95
As we move from the season of hearty soups and stews, it's also time to take
a break from heavy reading. "Attachments" fits the menu perfectly.
Beth and Jennifer are friends and co-workers at a newspaper. When they're
not reviewing films or editing copy, they communicate with each other by
highly personal and brutally honest e-mail. Lincoln works in the IT department,
reading e-mails that have been flagged for inappropriate content. He has
two master's degrees but is still nursing a broken heart from college. He
lives with his mother and meets friends for "Dungeons & Dragons" marathons
on weekends.
As Beth's and Jennifer's emails are constantly flagged, Lincoln comes to
know all about them — Beth's boyfriend and his commitment issues; Jennifer's
husband and their pregnancy issues; the cute guy in the office (Lincoln himself).
Soon, he realizes he is falling for Beth, but he can't exactly tell her that
he's been reading her e-mails all this time. We're along for the ride as
the novel alternates between the emails and the narrative.
Ultimately, this is Lincoln's story as he starts having a social life, gets
an apartment and eventually comes clean to Beth. The characters are likeable,
and we wish them well. Then there's the subtext of how we tend to e-mail
the person in the next cubicle rather than speak with them, and the fact
that we give up all privacy when we login at the workplace. "Attachments" will
put a spring in your step. (Rainbow Rowell will appear at the Des Moines
Central Library on April 18 as part of the AViD series.) CV
