Attachments

Title: Attachments
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2012
Rating: 7/10

Review: I came across a mention of this novel while looking out for the next book to read. Since I've enjoyed Eleanor & Park, I decided to give Attachments a try.

There are two main narratives in Attachments. One narrative takes a form of emails/IMs between two friends (Jennifer and Beth) who work at a newspaper. They discuss the sort of things any two women may discuss: plans, relationships, cute guys at the office.

The second narrative follows Lincoln who is hired by the newspaper's IT department to monitor the employee's internet usage. His job is basically to read all flagged emails that people send and send out reprimands for non-work-related activities. Of course, Jennifer and Beth's communication gets flagged, but Lincoln is so captivated by their conversation that he just keeps reading their mail.

Attachments felt very much like a typical women's book. Everything is about relationships. Mostly about the romantic ones, but when it's not, then it's about Lincoln's relationship with Doris or his mom or his friends. I liked the characters and they felt very realistic and natural to me (except, maybe, for Beth's boyfriend, who was just odd). However, this relentless focus on relationships in lieu of the plot was a bit much. I thought it was pretty clear from the start how things were going to turn out and there was less drama than I expected. That was both good and bad -- on one hand, exaggerated drama just makes me roll my eyes, on the other hand, lack of drama makes for a somewhat flat book story.

I would place Attachments in my easy reading category. Not terribly deep or insightful, but easy to consume and enjoyable overall.