Caleb Johnson Book Review # 9

[Caleb]

I chose this book "Landline" by Rainbow Rowell because of the great time I had reading "Eleanor & Park" a week or so ago. I am rather glad I did I might add. Based not on the 2017 film but instead on the imaginings of Rainbow Rowell, "Landline" takes place in modern times, where Georgie and her husband Neal are drifting apart from each other. They both feel their marriage breaking at the seems but do not do anything about it. Things get worse when Georgie's work gets in the way of the family being together on Christmas. That is when Georgie finds a special phone that can communicate with the past. She can call Neal from the past, with their marriage on the line she hopes he will pick up. That is all I can say about the story really; anything else will give the whole thing away. So, in comparing this book with "Eleanor & Park" I think I enjoyed the former better. Not that this book is not good. The characters are written well and the drama is compelling. I particularly liked the bits at Georgie's work-she writes for a television sit-com. Both of the novels by Rowell I have read are good, so now it comes down to a matter of personal opinion, which is why I choose "Eleanor & Park." But to give this book some more credit where it is due: along with Neal and Georgie, their two little girls, Alice and Noomi also teeter in the balance. It was those two girls that really made the drama real, because it is not faint, fleeting love here, it is a long marriage with high stakes, and that is where the most compelling parts of the story lie for me. But then again, it might just be me. Check out the book and see for yourself.